


Chasing Shadows

by Toward_The_Horizon



Category: K-pop, VICTON (Band), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Crime Drama, Crime Scenes, Detective!Chan, Mentions of Death, Morally Ambiguous Character, Shady Characters, Violence, because that was asked for, detective!subin, informants, kpop, psychopaths, pyscho!subin, quirky webdrama vibes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 34,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26361973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toward_The_Horizon/pseuds/Toward_The_Horizon
Summary: Balancing work and home life can be difficult. Especially if you're a Detective with a less-than-legal hobby you've been trying to hide for as long as you can remember.Subin matches that description- the youngest detective in his precinct, who enjoys a strange hobby that could get him in a lot of trouble if he were to be caught. He's gotten good at the balancing part. Building up a partnership with Chan, the best detective on the squad, and keeping him close had become second nature, as had convincing all of his friends and colleagues of his harmlessness. But then a stranger comes into the precinct one night, blood and dirt under his fingernails, and confesses to a murder Subin knows he didn't commit. He knows this because the real perpetrator had been Subin himself. The boy's false confession puts him behind bars, out of Subin's reach, and then the precinct's favourite delinquent shows up to stir the pot, and leads to the reopening of the case.This is the story of how Subin is assigned the case of one of his own murders, and how every step of the way he tries to keep Chan off of his scent, control the informant whom he shares far too much history with, and keep his secrets hidden.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	1. A Stroll In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andthesunranon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthesunranon/gifts).



> this is a birthday gift for my favourite person (happy birthday!) who gave me a few pointers for something she'd like to read (but you can read it too if you want...i wont tell her shhhhh)  
> happy birthday, favourite person!!!

It’s dark out, that night. It's the kind of near-impenetrable dark that gnaws at the edges of the hazy orange glow of the streetlamps, shortening their reach, erasing the traces of the figure walking calmly across the asphalt. If Subin took a hand out of the pocket of his dark coat and put it up to his eyes, right now, he’d be unable to see more than a vague impression of the edges of his fingers in the darkness. 

He’s sticking to the edge of the sidewalk, not quite outside of the dull, barely-there streetlight glow that breaks the darkness now and again, little more than a moving shadow amongst the expanses of stationary shadows, his shoes soundless across the street. He’d drawn his coat close to him, but had neglected the buttons. It’s dark enough tonight to not have to wonder about being spotted.

It’s also his birthday, though, and he’d decided to treat himself.

So he strolls all the way back to his loft like this, slowly, his shirt already drying in crisp, stiff patches as he walks. He doesn’t turn the lights on, when he arrives, still restraining himself enough to pad silently through the dimness. He’d know the layout with his eyes closed, and he finds his room with little thought, his mind still on the stiffness of his shirt and what it means, playing back the memory of the moments before he’d started walking home with a small smile. This is his birthday present to himself- less caution than usual. A walk out in the open, not bothering to button his coat and hide things he really should be hiding. 

He grabs the bundle of clothes he’d left folded on his desk that morning and steps back into the hallway. The door across the corridor is wide open. 

Subin lets himself cross softly through the threshold, thinking better of leaning against the frame of the door at the last moment, crossing his arms instead. His roommate snores quietly from the bed in the centre of the room, on his back, chest rising and falling in deep, calm breaths. Subin watches him for a while, feeling the rest of the blood seeping through his shirt dry and harden, his head tipped to one side. The wide window set into Sejun’s bedroom wall is close enough to a neon restaurant sign that it filters through a little light, even on a night so pitch dark as this one. It highlights the side of his face, the one arm thrown out of his blanket, in a pale, cold violet. 

Subin imagines shuffling the few steps to his roommate’s bed and shaking him gently by the arm. He pictures Sejun’s waking, eyes blowing wide as he spots Subin in his room, amongst the shadows, and then how he’d gasp, pull himself up, as his tired eyes take in the dry crimson staining his shirt.

 _You’re hurt,_ he’d say, his face the perfect portrait of concern. 

_I’m fine,_ Subin imagines himself saying in turn, watching Sejun frown at his response. He wonders how long it would take Sejun to realise there's too much blood and too few wounds for it to be Subin's own. Even then, some concerned naivety might override good sense.

 _Was it work?_ he might ask. _Did someone get hurt?_

Subin wonders whether Sejun would actually believe what he’d done if he told him outright. The evidence is all over his clothes, but would even that be enough? 

No, he shouldn't do it.

Even when he’s feeling generous, letting himself indulge, he’s not _that_ careless. He makes sure that he’s quiet as he leaves, remembering not to close Sejun’s door, in case he notices the difference in the morning, hearing their front door lock automatically behind him.

The darkness of the street feels like it’s seeping into him, too, turning him into shadow, his eyes long since adjusted to the deepness of the shade. He wears it like a second skin now, another long coat that conceals his features, welcoming him sweetly, an old friend. 

The laundromat is close to his loft, and he walks the entire way without buttoning his jacket, until the darkness begins to brighten, and the luminescent box of glass becomes visible down the street. Then he buttons his coat, feeling the blood flake as the fabric rubs together. There’s only one other person in the launderette, because of the late hour, an older woman with broad shoulders who spares him a single glance as he steps through the doors. He fixes her a smile, a small, disinterested quirk of his lips, and watches her forget him, losing her wariness. Subin’s smile is more genuine, as he walks over to the washing machines, and sheds his jacket.

The laundrette is a dull, rectangular room encased in wide windows, with washing machines and dryers stacked the entire length of the back wall, and a short line of machines cutting down the centre of the room towards the door. Subin selects a machine against the wall and steps up to it, eyes stinging with the sudden, harsh brightness of the neon bulbs above him, the heels of his shoes clicking on dingy tile. One of the bulbs is flickering, the one he stops under, and the windows either side of him blink with the neon advertising the launderette, a sign stuck to the outside of the building, a beacon in the darkness. They cast light into the room from the outside, and under the dimer section of the room he’s in, the floor is painted a warm red, the walls and machines lit with deep, bold blue. 

He has changed his shirt and started unbuckling his belt by the time he feels eyes on his back.

When he turns, slightly, to look over his shoulder, he sees her watching him. Now she’s remembering her fear.

Subin smiles politely and glances back at the bin of the washing machine he’s filled, as if just realising that the load is stained a telltale rusted crimson.

“Oh,” he laughs, breathlessly, turning fully to the haggard stranger and seeing her study the wide grin on his face, confused. “Please don't misunderstand. I’m a police officer.” 

It’s always so much more satisfying to tell the truth than to lie, to bend it into something it shouldn’t be. 

“The machine in my flat broke, so…” He gives her another wide, awkward grin, and sees her believe him. “I'm sorry,” he adds, for good measure. “That must have given you quite the fright.”

She shakes her head and waves his words away, collecting a basket of towels and saying good night, politely, but certainly in a way that could sound more natural. Maybe he had scared her after all.

He finds he doesn’t entirely care. The risk has been taken now, and he’s too high on the events of the night to worry much about a stray stranger giving his description to anyone. She didn’t seem like the law-conscious type, either, not as if she’d be overly keen on the idea of stepping into a precinct over what could so easily be a misunderstanding.

Subin changes into his clean clothes slowly, wiping the red off of his arms and neck with a washcloth he throws into the washing machine, too, and hopes silently that another stranger might appear in the doorway in time to see the bright pink his clothes have turned the water. They don’t, but he supposes one was enough. Even his indulgence tonight has boundaries. It wouldn’t do to let his happiness turn into carelessness.

Even in the almost complete darkness, the night still holds a little warmth as he steps back out onto the street, a bag full of still-stained clothes loosely in one hand. He’d known he’d have to throw them out anyway, but he’d wanted the walk, the opportunity to run into someone. He'll discard them another day.

He whistles, on the way home, swinging the bag beside him. 


	2. Office Attitude

“Yes, yes, a great idea, sir, I couldn’t agree more,” someone’s saying, so jovial and boisterous that Subin can hear their voice at the bottom of the stairs, before he’s even on the first floor of the precinct. He rolls his eyes, though an amused chuckle echoes around him as the voice continues, because he can’t help laughing at how ridiculously familiar this scenario is.

“Yes, I’ll do it right away, Captain, right away, you can leave it to me.”

Byungchan’s eyes flicker away from the man he’s grovelling to, mid bow, and spot Subin just as he's stepping through the gated barrier seperating the elevator and stairwell from the rest of the room. A mixture of relief and trepidation blow his eyes wide, and as he stands he turns back to their boss with an even wider grin, dimples on full display, still laughing that awkward fake laugh of his as the Captain sees Subin walking toward them, too.

“Detective Jung,” he greets, with a nod. Subin offers something that could almost pass as a grin, if the person rating it were very generous, and passes them both without bowing, setting his bag down onto the floor by his desk.

Byungchan waves chirpily to the Captain and grovels some more, and then the door of the Captain’s office is closing and Byungchan is charging angrily into the break room with a muffled groan. A moment or two later he emerges with Chan, who’s red faced with laughter already, despite the early hour, hitting Byungchan scoldingly on the arm even as he giggles.

“-yeah and if he wasn’t a walking fossil I’m sure he’d be able to sort his emails himself instead of sitting there on his ass-”

Chan laughs ecstatically and hits him again. “You can’t say that about the Captain!”

“If you two don’t keep your voices down, he’ll hear you,” Subin says, not bothering to look away from his computer screen, and both of them pause, turning toward his desk. Byungchan clears his throat, and wanders back over to his side of the room, to his desk in front of the Captain’s office, and makes a show of being suddenly very busy reorganising his files.

Chan snorts. “Weirdo,” he says, purposefully loud enough for Byungchan to hear him, laughing as the receptionist flips him the bird discreetly.

His eyes are still on Byungchan as he rests an arm against the back of Subin’s chair and leans in to mumble, “You know, you really should talk to him more. Maybe then he’d stop being so weird around you.”

Biting back the response he’d really wanted to give at the prospect of getting to know his colleagues, Subin shakes his head, and says instead, “He’s just new. I’m sure he’ll get used to me.”

Chan shrugs, making a noise of agreement in the back of his throat as he steps to the side. “So,” he sings, as he topples into his chair, “what did you do last night? Anything exciting?”

The question calls up snapshots of memory: the crack of bone, the feeling of something warm and slick running over his fingers, the wetness of it starting to soak through the fabric of his shirt, onto his stomach, his arms, filling the air with a heady, metallic scent.

“I had dinner with Sejun,” he says.

Chan pouts at him, a slight frown etching a line between his brows. “That’s it? No surprise party I wasn’t invited to?”

Subin shrugs. “That’s it. And I told Sejun that if he ever decided to throw me a surprise party he’d wake up missing a kidney, so...”

“Ah,” Chan nods. He turns on his computer and his words come slower as he half-loses himself in typing and tapping on his computer mouse. “That’d do it. Really, though, you should learn to let go a little. Sometimes I forget you’re younger than me.” He turns to Subin just so he can exaggerate a grimace, as if it were the worst insult in the world, and Subin gives him a tight smile.

“Sometimes I forget I’m younger than you too,” he says wryly, and Chan chuckles and punches his arm.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were calling me childish.”

“It's good that you know better, then,” Subin tells him, and readjusts one of the erasers Chan had made a wall out of, a wonky line separating his side of the desk from Subin’s. As soon as Subin’s turning back to his computer, Chan’s angling it again. 

It takes less than a minute of them both typing and reading through reports for Chan’s leg to start bouncing under his desk at a ridiculously insistent race. Another five minutes in, he’s muttering under his breath. Then he starts humming. One of his hands strays from the keyboard-

“If you start strumming your fingernails against our desk, Chan, I swear I’ll make you eat the entire eraser wall one eraser at a time.”

Chan huffs and throws himself back into his chair. “Isn’t there some excuse we can make up to get out of the precinct? There must be some crime scene somewhere that needs us.”

“You have paperwork to finish.”

“I can catch up to the paperwork-”

Subin cuts across him impatiently, knowing exactly where this conversation is going. “As your partner, Chan, I can tell you that the last time I saw you so much as _glance_ at a finished report was two Fridays ago when you checked the one Byungchan wrote for you for spelling errors.”

“I paid him for that!” Chan protests.

“Yeah, great,” Subin says airily, “because bribing the new secretary to do your work for you was so very good of you. I'm sure the Captain would be thrilled, if he knew.”

Grumpy, Chan half-spins around in his chair, pouting as he stares down at his keyboard. “It’s not as if I can trust my partner to do it for me, after what happened last time.”

Subin shrugs unapologetically. “I was just being truthful.”

“Did you really need to include _that_ , though?”

Turning away from his computer this time, Subin meets his eyes with a raised brow. “You mean I shouldn’t have mentioned that when a suspected murder aimed a shotgun at you, you said-”

Chan whines loudly to interrupt him. Subin’s lips quirk as his partner stares regretfully at the ceiling high above them. “Let me forget about it, Subin, alright?”

“Get your paperwork done and I’ll consider not bringing it up in every team meeting from now on.”

With a sigh, Chan wheels himself closer to his desk. “What did I do to deserve a partner who never makes mistakes?” he complains, shaking his head, already typing away at the report he’d been putting off since he arrived at work that morning.

Subin doesn’t answer him, already pulling up the evaluation notes that Byungchan had just sent him- judging by the way the receptionist had avoided his eye when Subin glanced over at him, there’s something in the email that isn’t ideal. Chan always scores high on their evaluations, a precinct favourite and always the officer with the most arrests, but Subin always gets the same note- _cold around the office. Should reach out to colleagues._

It’s what he expected. He knows it isn’t only Chan that’s noticed how disinterested he is in chatting in the break room or sharing lunch breaks with the people they work with, and he knows Chan is only one of few who find his reclusiveness endearing and born of shyness, instead of snobbery. Some of their colleagues have soft spots for him, because with Subin it's usually one or the other, endeared or wary, but the Captain unfortunately seems to fall under the wary category.

Subin reminds himself to be careful, even though he always is, as he exits out of the email, not bothering to read the evaluation of his work itself, knowing it’ll be faultless. His work isn’t the problem. He’s second only to Chan in that regard.

Maybe he should start taking their advice. He supposes it might be fun to snag another few of his colleagues, make them trust him, in a way they certainly don’t right now. But it’d take time, and effort, and some days he isn’t in the mood to hide the parts of him that only some people see, the parts that make others cautious of him. His voice and his gaze and the things he says that he shouldn’t, the things that Chan never seems to notice, the sharp edges. Sejun’s the same, his naive, warm flatmate, who thinks of him as something entirely other than what he is. Sometimes it’s fun to fool people, if he can work up the motivation.

He slides up beside Byungchan at lunch, when the tall boy is chatting to a sergeant Subin knows isn’t too averse to him, and sees the secretary double take as he smiles, as warmly as he’s able, feeling the gesture brighten his usually sullen expression. 

“D’you mind?” Subin asks, pointing to the coffee machine Byungchan is blocking, and Byungchan, still looking vaguely bewildered, nods and steps aside.

“I didn’t know you drank coffee, Subin,” the sergeant is saying as the machine starts to whirl, smiling in a way that makes it clear some joke is coming next, and Subin turns with an entirely fake look of confusion and quirks a brow. “When did you come off of the baby formula?”

Byungchan blanches, but Subin whines a laugh and shakes his head, used to the teasing, enjoying it only for Byungchan’s reaction.

“I’m too old to be babied,” he says, making sure none of his annoyance comes through in his voice, softening it into something quiet and embarrassed, and in the reflection of the coffee machine he sees the start of Byungchan’s uncertain smile. He turns back and leans against the counter, crossing his arms, sipping coffee from a machine he has never used before, ignoring the idea of so many hands before his on the buttons, on the mugs, on the counter he’s resting against.

“How’d you do on the eval?” the sergeant asks, and Subin smiles into his mug for a moment before he answers, as if it was something good, but not too good.

“The same as always. I should be friendlier around the precinct,” he says quietly, swirling his coffee around in his mug, and both of them laugh, because they know it’s true. Byungchan’s laugh is still uncertain, but it’s there, and as Subin laughs along it grows into a stronger sound.

“Is that why we’re being graced with your presence, then?” the sergeant asks, and Subin hits her lightly on the arm with the back of his hand, inwardly cringing at the touch but hiding his reaction with a smile.

“Don't flatter yourself,” he says. He wiggles his near-empty mug in the air. “I needed the coffee.”

“Chan?” Byungchan asks, sympathy strong in his voice.

“Chan,” Subin agrees. “I swear it’s as if he’d rather be getting shot at than doing his paperwork, sometimes.”

“What about that friend of his?” the sergeant asks. “There’s been no visits from his favourite delinquent recently? I’m sure that’d cure his boredom.”

“Who?” Byungchan asks. Subin had forgotten just how new Byungchan actually is to the precinct, but if he really doesn’t know who they’re talking about, it must've been no longer than a week since Byungchan started. 

“No one,” Subin says quickly, not bothering to cover his irritation- which is entirely justified this time, even if the others in the room don’t know the real cause of it. “Just someone who makes more trouble than they’re worth.”

“I’m sure you’ll meet him soon,” the sergeant adds. “He’s never away for long, and Chan keeps him around even though the Captain doesn’t like it. Keeps things interesting.”

“He’s _useful_ ,” a voice says behind them, and all three of them turn to see Chan resting in the doorway, a scowl on his face and his arms hanging limply by his side. “Which the Captain _knows-”_

Subin drops his mug unceremoniously in the sink, almost smashing it, covering Chan’s complaining with the noise. “You being away from your desk means you’ve finished your paperwork, doesn’t it?” he asks, and though he thinks Byunchan glances at him a little sharply at the thinly veiled threat, Chan just throws up his hands.

“ _Yes,_ ” he hisses sourly, “now can we get out of this damned office already before I start to waste away?” He pulls a face, holding his arms out in front of him like a zombie and sagging, making the sergeant shake her head and Byungchan giggle.

Subin shoves him back through the break room doorway with a sigh.

“Come on, then,” he says. “I’m sure there’s been a murder somewhere.”

Chan snatches his jacket from the back of his desk chair as they pass, not sparing his computer a glance as they head for the stairs. 

“ _Finally_ ,” he sighs.

  
  



	3. Change of Plan

A tall figure walks calmly through a crowded lobby, humming to himself, swinging the lanyard in his hand through the air in wide circles.

He has a habit of pretending to belong places he doesn’t, and has perfected the art of fitting in through sheer confidence alone, because no one would be crazy enough to actually wander up to the elevators of a police precinct with an ID in their hands if they weren’t supposed to be there, and the eyes that should be following him turn away as he hums happily, showing the ID to a slot in the wall that opens the elevators. It’s a fancy new system they’ve got, a few state-of-the-art security measures that work far less effectively than a few gruff bodyguards might, and he laughs to himself as the elevator doors slide closed, because it must at least in small part be built to keep him and people like him out. Maybe he’s flattering himself. He tends to do that, when he’s in a good mood.

He could just as easily taken the stairs, because it’s only the first floor he’s heading to, but the stairs have the added complication of bumping into someone he doesn’t want to see right now, and he knows the elevator is a safe space. 

The doors don’t ding with his arrival, so no one important looks up as he steps out onto the first floor, still humming that tune that’s stuck in his head, the lanyard crudely around his neck now, just because he finds it funny to imagine it belonging to him, to imagine his own face stuck in that little dull white square photo in the middle of the ID. The boy on it is unfamiliar, but he knows who he is, because the precinct had fired their old receptionist last week, and she must have been replaced with haste. 

The precinct first floor is one huge shared office space, with a break room and conference room set into the back wall, with wide, two-person desks set in irritatingly neat rows between them and the elevator. The only single desk in the room is just inside the plastic barrier of gates that swing open as the intruder swipes his stolen ID across another scanner. That's more like it, he thinks, though he doubts very much that anyone in the busy office would be fast enough to stop him just hopping over the waist-high barrier anyway. 

The receptionist is, of course, not at their desk. That’s either got something to do with them being tardier than the last receptionist or the fact that their ID is currently hanging around someone else’s neck, as that someone else half-turns away from a couple of officers stepping towards the elevator, hiding his face. He spins around the old printer and swipes a bundle of paper from the tray, holding it up in front of him as if the blank page at the top of the pile is very interesting reading material. With the lanyard and the papers and the fact that he’s hankered over reading them, he figures he can pass for a very stressed intern or receptionist or whatever the hell the equivalent is here. No one bothers him as he steps up to the single desk in the room, stationed outside a narrow glass door that leads to the Captain's office. No one inside. Good- the plan would last all of two seconds if the Captain looked up to see a tall, bright-haired figure outside his office.

He should be quick anyway. He dumps the pile of blank paper onto the receptionist's desk and manages to knock the pen pot by the computer down onto the floor.

“ _Woopsie_.”

He rounds the desk and drops to his knees, rolling the chair to his side to hide himself from view, scooping the scattered pens and pencils back into the tub and righting it on the desktop. He turns on the computer like that, the knees of his jeans gathering dust from the precinct floor, just looking out from atop the desk, and then when the ancient machine flickers to life, he slides into the chair quickly, typing a short sequence of numbers into the passcode bar and crossing his fingers. Bingo. The new receptionist hasn’t even bothered to change the password on their computer yet. 

The tall figure lets out a breathy laugh as he pulls up the files and types a date into the search bar, seeing the results filter out a few saved items from that day and opening one at random. Luck really is on his side, today. A familiar face stares back at him from the top of a report, a black and white photo of a victim pasted beside a mass of tiny text. The Mathson case- victim disappeared three months ago, a suspect confessed to murder only a few days later, was sentenced to life just last week. He skims his eyes over the report, but it’s nothing he doesn’t know. It’s sent to the printer and he’s ducking out from the desk again, humming as he walks, faster now that the noise from the break room has started to die down. Lunch must almost be over.

He resists the urge to shake the printer violently as it starts coughing up the page he’d wanted printed.

“Work,” he hisses under his breath, “you ancient piece of crap.”

His threat doesn’t make it go any faster, but soon enough there’s the report, and he snatches it from the printer tray and is already tucking it into his jacket when he turns- and finds someone standing behind him, arms crossed.

“ _Great_.”

“Good afternoon, Seungwoo,” a rough voice says quietly.

Seungwoo draws up to his full height, sighing. “You know, I was having a really good day until you showed up.”

“Uh-huh.” The younger boy nods drily, holding out a hand for the paper still half-way into Seungwoo’s jacket without unfolding his arms. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d check in on my favourite detective,” Seungwoo says, his voice honey-sweet, though his smile is teasing. “See that the others are treating him right.”

“You better be talking about me,” another voice says, and both of them look behind Subin to see Chan approaching, a coffee in one hand, perfectly at ease as he smiles at the taller boy still holding a police report he definitely shouldn’t be holding.

“Hello, officer,” Seungwoo says, with a tiny salute.

“Hey, trouble.” Chan stops just behind Subin and puts a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. He gestures with the coffee in his hand to Seungwoo’s jacket. “What’ve you got there?”

_Well...change of plan._

Seungwoo brings the report out of his pocket and spins it around for them to see. Chan leans forward, eyes skimming over the picture at the top.

“Is there something we should know?” Subin says, snatching the report back and ignoring the way Seungwoo smiles at his irritation.

“Just a few small details that might have been overlooked. I can point them out, of course, for a price.”

Chan looks over Subin’s shoulder at the report of a disappearance case that had been closed last week. He’d heard the victim’s name a few times around the office, but nothing more. “Neither of us worked this case.”

Seungwoo shrugs. “Would you rather I go speak to the people who did?”

Chan looks slightly alarmed, but Subin just laughs scornfully.

“You know we’re the only people who’ll talk to you. No one else will believe anything you say.”

Seungwoo sniffs, not seeming to mind the idea. “It’s a good thing I'm talking to you two, then.”

“Cough it up already, Seungwoo," Chan says. "What do you know that we don’t?”

“Oh, right.” Seungwoo distractedly fixes the cuff of a jacket artfully speckled with paint. Like everything the precinct’s most persistent nuisance owns, one glance is enough to convince Chan that the price tag that had been attached to it must have ended with a few more zeros than the check he’d had to write for his apartment deposit. Figures. Here Chan is, working his ass off and risking his life every day, and Seungwoo’s- “They got the wrong guy.”

Chan’s mouth drops open, effectively shocked out of his train of thought. “They _what?”_

Seungwoo grins, wide and self-satisfied. His vibrant, plum hair has been styled away from his face in two backwards strokes, gelled to stick out ever so slightly either side of his head, and, coupled with his expression and the flash of everything he’s wearing, it’s very easy for Chan to imagine a giant, lanky peacock standing in front of him instead of a man.

Subin’s dark eyes narrow. “That’s impossible. They got a confession. They found the body exactly where the suspect said it would be, he told them everything.”

Seungwoo nods along as if he already knows this, which, considering they'd caught him red handed stealing the report, he must. “Strange, isn’t it?”

“You think it’s a false confession? Why? As a cover up?”

Seungwoo grins, close lipped. He puts his hands in his pockets, and Subin and Chan exchange a knowing glance. This is going to take a while.

“Alright,” Chan says, biting the bullet. “What do you want?”

A sly, amused glint lights behind Seungwoo’s dark eyes as they settle on Chan’s. “How about a coffee?”

“Still no, playboy. I definitely can’t handle you.”

With a pleased laugh, Seungwoo takes his hands back out of his pocket, running one thoughtfully through his hair and disrupting it even more. Chan's never sure whether there's any sincerity to his bargaining but, if there is, he doesn't seem as annoyed at the rejection as he could be. “Fine. Then...how about we settle for pretending this was an anonymous tip, and I get to walk out of here without cuffs around my wrists.”

“That bad, huh?

It’s the terms he always gives them, but something about the way he says them now makes Chan think he means them, this time.

Seungwoo says nothing. 

“Deal,” Chan sighs, knowing if he leaves it up to Subin this will go nowhere. It’s always him having to take the compromises, which means that once again his head’s going to be the one on the chopping block if this goes badly. But Seungwoo’s tips are never wrong, and no matter how much the Captain hates relying on his information, sometimes they have to. This seems like one of those times. “What d’you know?”

“I know a few hours before your guy confessed, he came to me with a wad of cash and a _very_ strange request.”

Subin rolls his eyes impatiently. “Which was?”

“He wanted me to find a body for him.”

Chan curses and takes the report from Subin, turning it for Seungwoo to see and tapping the small picture of the victim in the bottom corner. "This body?”

Without looking at it, Seungwoo nods.

“What did you tell him?” Subin asks.

“What d’you think I told him? I said I had better things to do with my time than tracking down a corpse for him.”

A little hopefully, Chan asks- “So you didn’t tell him where to find the victim?”

“Nope,” Seungwoo says, popping the p like bubblegum. “But clearly someone else did.”

“Great,” Chan groans, slumping slightly. “So the guy we arrested for murder didn’t even know where the victim’s body was without bribing someone else to tell him first.”

Seungwoo snaps his fingers. “You got it.”

“Cover up?” Chan asks, somehow directing the question both to Subin and Seungwoo.

“It would certainly seem like it, wouldn’t it?” Seungwoo wonders. “Someone wanted to find that body before the police did, so they could confess and take the fall instead. It would make sense.”

Neither of them ask whether he knows who the suspect was trying to cover for, because both of them know by now that the only thing Seungwoo won’t tell them is a name. He never makes this personal.

Subin pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Do people usually come to you with requests like that?”

A flicker of irritation crosses over Seungwoo’s face. “You didn’t think you two were the only people in the city pulling my strings, did you?” he asks bitterly. “I’ve got rent to pay.”

Chan frowns. Though he’s by far the friendliest person in the precinct to Seungwoo, and they’d formed a strange kind of friendship in these short moments they see each other, he never appreciates the reminder of what Seungwoo does in his spare time.

“But you didn’t take the money?” Subin asks, sounding bored.

Seungwoo gives him a sour smile. “I’m not that desperate.”

“So someone else told him.” Seungwoo nods at Chan, who squares his jaw and fights back a groan. “What else do you know?”

“Nothing you can afford,” Seunwgoo says. Chan isn’t sure whether he sounds disappointed as he says it, like he wants to tell them more anyway, or whether he’s just imagining it, hoping for him to be better than he is.

Whichever one it is, his good mood of that morning is quickly washing away, and it doesn’t help that a very flustered Byungchan emerges from the elevator as they’re all still lingering by the printer. He’s clutching a bundle of files with a mountain of loose paperwork balanced on top of them to his chest, tucked under his chin to stop them slipping, and doesn’t notice Seungwoo casually lift a foot out in front of him until he’s tripping, and the pile of files and papers are flying through the air. 

“Hey!”

Chan’s fast, ducking to cover the papers from sight as he grabs them from the floor, but Subin’s faster, shoving Seungwoo backwards into the wall with a forearm pressed to his chest, just under his neck. Seungwoo laughs, tipping his head to look down at him with an amused grin.

“It was worth a try.”

Subin glances over his shoulder to see Byungchan and Chan shuffling everything into a pile again and releases Seungwoo, stepping away as Byungchan takes back the bundle, fixes Seungwoo with a dirty look, and grumbles over to his desk.

“You’re ridiculous,” Chan says, and Seungwoo keeps grinning, unapologetic. “See anything interesting?”

The informant shrugs.

Subin gives him a dark look. “That was a cheap trick, even for you. Are you really that desperate for information?”

Fixing his clothes, Seungwoo steps away from the wall and shakes his head. “Just like keeping you guys on your feet.” 

But if Byungchan’s back from the meeting, then that means-

“What the hell is _he_ doing here again?” the Captain growls.

They all spin to see him looking at Seungwoo with a glare that could almost rival Subin’s. Seungwoo huffs a laugh and shoves his hands in his pockets again.

“Cap, you’re back early. How was the meeting?”

None of them ask him how he knows the Captain’s schedule. The Captain just waves a resigned hand through the air and says to Chan, “Send him away, would you? I’ve had a long day already.”

“I was just leaving, actually,” Seungwoo smiles, handing over Byungchan's ID as Chan gestures for it. Then he raises a brow, and lilts, “Unless you could make staying worth my time, of course.”

Subin rolls his eyes and steps to the elevator, pressing the button and then turning to hold the gate open. Seungwoo looks surprised, and seems to consider not obeying, but even he’s not that crazy, and just as the elevator doors slide open, he steps through the barrier. Subin gets in the elevator with him, just as the doors begin to close. Chan thinks he just manages to catch Seungwoo’s grimace before they close entirely, and both of them are out of view. He laughs, and heads back to his desk.


	4. Confinement

The elevator ride is painfully slow, for just one floor.

“Do you know who did it?” Subin asks, as soon as they’re alone together, and Seungwoo’s leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, putting as much distance between them as possible.

Away from the others, Seungwoo’s not as amused. He’s not smiling as he asks, “You think I’m bluffing?”

Subin stares at him. “A yes or no would suffice.”

A beat of silence, then, “Yes.”

Subin nods, because he knew the answer to his question already. Seungwoo always knows. Subin doesn’t know how, but he does.

So rather than questioning Seungwoo’s sources or his motivations, both of which have always been out of his reach, he asks instead, “What would it take for you to give a name?”

A muscle jumps in Seungwoo’s jaw, his gaze stubbornly set on the elevator doors, showing only the profile of his face to Subin. “I won’t tell,” he says.

The elevator shudders to a halt. Subin settles a fingertip on the ‘close doors’ button and holds it down.

“What’s your price?”

Seungwoo still doesn’t look at him. “I have my reasons, Subin.”

“Nothing comes for free with you,” Subin says immediately, as if he hadn’t spoken. “What do you want? Name it.”

“Take your hand off of that button,” Seungwoo offers wryly. Both of them know his nonchalance is faked- they know what it means for Subin to keep them here, trapped together in this small space. This isn’t something to joke about, anymore.

Subin doesn’t move. “Do you expect a thank you? Am I supposed to be indebted to you for this?”

Seungwoo laughs, but it’s a warped version of his usual merry bubble. “You think I don’t know better than to ask you for help, with our history?”

Subin’s stubborn, but he knows better than anyone how well Seungwoo can keep a secret when he wants to. He takes his finger from the elevator button, clutching shaking hands behind his back to hide the tremor in them. The doors slide open.

“I don’t trust you to keep this to yourself,” Subin says, as Seungwoo steps out. He forces himself to remain inside. “Even with our history.”

The doors close on him before Seungwoo can reply, and the lift rattles back up to the first floor. Seungwoo looks at his reflection in the elevator doors and bites his tongue to keep from yelling.

When Subin steps up to his desk, Chan is already surrounded by two detectives and Sergeant Kim, explaining the situation. The faces around him are studies in irritation- none of them seem too happy to be proven wrong by an informant after the case had appeared to be closed so cleanly. 

Subin drops into his chair and they all fix their attention back on Chan, not looking at him, some trying to actively avoid his eye, some forgetting about him as soon as he sits.

“I have some good news,” Chan says, when the crowd has been sent back to their own desks, in a way that makes it clear the news isn't very good at all. Subin just quirks a brow, not even glancing up at him to show he’s listening.

“As usual, the Captain wasn’t entirely thrilled with the fact that we hadn’t kicked Seungwoo to the curb as soon as we’d spotted him, or arrest him or something, honestly I blacked out a little in the middle of his lecture, but I’m sure I’ve heard it all before. So we’re being assigned the case.”

"Why? That wasn’t even our case to begin with.”

“A mixture of punishment for humouring Seungwoo and just because the others couldn't get it right the first time.”

So they’re being assigned to the Mathson case. Chan, the best detective in the precinct, with the most arrests every year for as long as he’s been here, and Subin, the new prodigy that’s never screwed up a case and already has a reputation for being a natural. Isn’t that just great.

Subin’s been assigned to a murder he committed himself. 

_ What the hell was Seungwoo thinking?  _ There must be something about the case Subin himself doesn’t know. Seungwoo could have given him up so easily, but he hadn’t. There had been countless times in the past he could have given Subin’s name, but he didn't then, either. 

And now he’s pointed Chan in the right direction by admitting they’d arrested the wrong person. So there must be something about Subin’s new admirer, who’d taken the fall for him, that Subin doesn’t know. Something risky, riskier than him going free and the police hunting for the real killer.

Subin hadn’t known about the boy until he’d shown up at the precinct late one night with dirt and blood under his fingernails. He’d chosen a victim no one would notice was gone, like he always did, so he’d thought no one would ever know about what he’d done. But then a boy had admitted to the things Subin had done himself, things he shouldn’t have known about, and even led the police to the body. He took the blame for it all. Subin still doesn’t know why.

Seungwoo does. He must know, to put Subin in harm's way now. But even though he’ll never turn Subin in, he’s not telling them anything else he knows.

Subin’s missing a puzzle piece. Working the case might be good for him, might allow him to see more clearly. But that means misleading Chan, if he can, every chance he gets. 

Great. This should be easy, then.


	5. Somehow

Subin’s done a lot of cruel things, but he’s always thought that what he does to Sejun everyday is the cruellest. 

He hadn’t expected him to be around for long. He was the first person Subin had found that seemed eager to share his rent, one stranger amongst a mass of warier candidates, but he’d moved in, and hasn’t moved out yet. It’s been six months, since then. 

And they’d gotten closer than Subin had planned. He knows how fond Sejun is of him, so carelessly trusting. Every night he’s reminded of it, as Sejun turns his back as they cook together, as Sejun falls asleep with his head on Subin’s shoulder, every tiny instance Sejun lets his guard down. And Subin enjoys it. It’s the cruellest part of him, that enjoys it.

Now, Sejun pokes his head around the wall at the sound of the apartment door locking behind Subin, grinning at the sight of the dark-haired boy shrugging out of his long jacket and hooking it on the peg by the door, amongst all of Sejun’s brighter jackets.

“You’re home!”

The head disappears back around the corner, and Subin follows Sejun’s excited voice into the kitchen to see a feast already waiting lined up on the island, steam rising from china bowls and plates laden with food.

“You’ve been busy.”

“I got off work early,” Sejun chirps. “I was hungry.”

“Are you sure we can eat all of this just the two of us?” Subin asks, just to hear Sejun scoff.

“It’s as if you don’t know who you’re talking to,” his roommate says. The light catches in the blue of his hair as he throws himself into the bar stool on the other side of the island and greedily eyes the banquet he’d prepared. Then he tilts his head, and peers closer at Subin’s expression. “What’s up with you?”

His voice brings Subin out of his musing. He gives a small smile and settles into a stool at the kitchen island. “Just work stuff. I have a new case to worry about.” 

There’s a hum of sympathy to follow this statement, just as there always is. Subin wonders if Sejun ever thinks about the things keeping Subin busy, making him worry. He wonders whether Sejun can bear to think of the things on Subin’s mind for even a moment before turning his thoughts away. Would it be a normal reaction, to turn away? Sejun doesn’t know the things bothering Subin have less to do with work and more with the unfortunate habit he’s been hiding for most of his life. _That,_ he definitely wouldn’t be able to stomach.

 _I did something,_ Subin imagines saying. _Something I shouldn’t have_.

What would Sejun assume he was talking about? A white lie, something so small that a slap on the wrist would be enough punishment?

A bowl is pushed closer towards him- he looks up to see Sejun smiling softly.

“You should eat,” he says, just as soft. “Food will help. Food always helps.”

Laughing a little, Subin picks a knife and fork from the tabletop. “Do you really think so?”

Sejun squints. “Maybe not always,” he admits. “But most of the time.”

He follows this statement by taking a bite so huge Subin wonders how he can possibly enjoy eating it, cheeks stuffed full to bursting, and sighing happily.

Subin hadn’t noticed his own hunger until now, but the stress and the mysteries of today has turned him ravenous, and Sejun grins continuously throughout dinner whenever he glances over at him, seeing his usually near-empty plate full of food. He almost eats as much as Sejun, but there’s still an empty feeling in him when they’re tidying the dishes away. It’s not food he wants. It’s another thing he’s hungry for.

But he can’t. He’ll hold back until this case is over. He’d sworn that to himself, on the way back here. Until he understands, he won’t take any more risks.

He wonders if he’ll be able to stick to such a promise. How long can he last before he gets restless, and gives in?

He’s curious about his limits, himself. He’ll see, he supposes, during the investigation, whether temptation or caution will win out.

How should he play this? Pinning the murder on someone else might be the quickest way to divert attention from himself, but it’s risky, and if it goes badly there will only be one more person adding confusion to the case. First the false confession, and then a scapegoat. It might cause more suspicion, especially in Chan. He’ll be the hardest to fool. And then there’s Seungwoo. Subin doesn’t know whether he’d stand by and let someone else take the fall for something Subin did himself. Probably, but he’d rather not have to bet on it.

His best course of action, he decides as he puts plates and bowls back in their cupboards, is to figure out why someone confessed to the crime in the first place. No one should have known about it. The boy that had stepped forward had been a complete stranger, but he’d known where the body was, and he’d taken the fall. Twenty five years to life, years that could have been Subin’s to spend. 

It doesn’t make any sense. It’s going to take some work, against Chan and possibly with him, too. Seungwoo might be useful, irritatingly. 

Twenty five years to life in a box of a cell. Even the idea starts a tremor in his hands. But the mystery is compelling, at least. He can’t deny the thrill of it, the uncertainty at every turn. He’d become a detective for this feeling, the feeling that’s as close as he can get to the thrill of a kill, the rush of adrenaline that comes just before, the complete calm just after. 

Subin laughs, staring up at his ceiling. He’s actually enjoying this, isn’t he?

Fine. Have some fun. Indulge, like Seungwoo would, always amused, always watchful, letting pawns play their parts and sitting back to watch the game. Don’t think of the box and the barred windows. He can get through this, somehow. Somehow.


	6. Unexpected Introductions

They step into the precinct the next morning to see a figure waiting patiently at their desk, hands clasped behind his back.

Chan looks back at Subin behind him as they cross through the barrier, but Subin’s frowning too, and he shrugs when he sees Chan’s questioning look.

“Can we help you?”

The man turns at the sound of Chan’s voice, unclasping his hands and watching the two of them approach him with a polite smile.

“Detectives Jung and Heo?”

Subin sits behind his desk without smiling and asks, “Who’s asking?” before Chan can respond.

The stranger opens his mouth to speak, but Chan makes an alarmed noise at the back of his throat, and stops behind his chair. “Hang on.” His eyes trail over the stranger’s face, his clever, impartial features, to the charcoal pinstripes of his suit and the grey briefcase clasped loosely in one hand.

Seeing the inspection, the stranger’s smile tightens, fractionally. “Is there a problem, officer?”

“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?” Chan asks, and then, when he receives a surprised nod, points to the desk to their left, where a crude, hand-written sign has been taped to the back of a computer monitor.

“No lawyers,” the stranger reads bemusedly, then laughs, one sharp, bright sound that lights up his face. “I’m afraid a rule like that might be detrimental to progress, in a police precinct.”

“Ignore him,” Subin says, monotone. “Why were you waiting for us?”

“Ah. Well, I’m told you two are the detectives on the Mathson case, now, and I represented the suspect in court.” Chan does a double take.

“The attorney? Esquire Kang, that’s you?”

The lawyer laughs good-naturedly again, extending his hand. “ _Esquire_?” he breathes. “Seungsik, please. Let’s not use all of the stuffy titles, they’re far too formal.”

Subin narrows his eyes as Chan hovers out of his chair to accept the handshake. Seungsik glances at him, after, but thinks better of extending Subin the same gesture, sitting in the chair Chan pulls up on the other side of the desk with a nod of greeting, instead.

He’s not what Subin expected, from the precinct gossip.

Attorney Kang, or _Seungsik_ , apparently, is so laughably incompetent that he’d been the favourite topic of gossip when Subin had arrived in this precinct. Detectives and sergeants and even beat cops all seemed to know how many cases he’d lost, how few he’d won. Subin had been imagining someone older. Someone very, very different from the polite, grinning boy in front of him now.

“As I’ve been informed the investigation is continuing, I thought I would introduce myself.”

Though Chan has been around this precinct far longer than Subin, he’s still younger than most of the other detectives, and he’d still been taking his sergeants exam when Seungsik had come on the scene. They’ve never met either, which is very obviously written on Chan’s face as Seungsik sits and looks between them. 

“Is there something wrong?” he asks, looking slightly bashful. They’re staring, both of them. Chan stops- Subin doesn’t.

“No, no, sorry, I was just- well, I expected you to be older.”

“I believe we’re the same age, officer.”

“Huh. You must have been top of your class.” It’s flattery, dripping charm, exactly the kind of thing Chan always says when he wants to leave a good impression on someone- something he’s very adept at, Subin has found. 

But Chan must also be confused, in reality. He had been expecting someone older, just like Subin, not some well-mannered prodigy the same age as him. Seungsik doesn’t seem like the kind to lose so many cases so easily. Especially not when he must have graduated early, to have already been in the field for so long.

Subin is careful to keep the distrust out of his expression, but it’s there. Even as Seungsik laughs and jokes with Chan as if they were old friends, it’s there.

As soon as there’s a gap in their conversation, Subin leans forward. “Forgive me,” he says, keeping his voice soft and quiet, as if he’d been silent until now because of a natural shyness, instead of suspicion, “but the case was only reopened yesterday afternoon, so we haven’t been able to do any investigating yet. If you had any questions, you would be better finding the Captain or the detectives who were originally assigned this case.”

“Oh, well, I don’t have any questions,” Seungsik says, smiling, “I just thought I would introduce myself, seen as we’ll likely be around each other until the case is closed again.”

“We appreciate it,” Chan says, even though he must know socialising with an unexpected stranger is just about Subin’s worst nightmare. “And sorry for the whole... _no lawyers_ joke.”

Seungsik laughs. “Please, no apology needed.” He stands, and Chan stands with him. Leaning in slightly, Seungsik adds, “I wouldn’t trust us either,” under his breath, and winks.

As soon as he’s gone, Chan drops his charmer facade and frowns at Subin.

“That was strange.”

“I’m glad you noticed too,” Subin says, genuinely. “He wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, from the stories.”

“No,” Chan muses, “you’re right, he’s not.”

“Maybe we should look into his recent cases, see if the old ones were just long runs of bad luck.”

Chan nods, wheeling his chair back towards his desk and squinting at his computer screen. “I think that’s a good idea. But first I think we have a crime scene to revisit.”

So much for strategizing. He should have known Chan would jump straight into work before he’d had a chance to think. 

“If you’re dragging me over there, can we at least get a coffee first?”

Chan looks across at him with a sympathetic pout. “Couldn’t sleep?” Subin shakes his head, and Chan sighs with pity but stands and shrugs on his jacket, not saying anything. It’s an occupational hazard, but Subin is still slightly bemused by the idea that Chan could understand the things they see at work could keep people up at night, but still shows up every morning. What would it be like if Subin himself were upset, if the things keeping him awake were the things other people do to each other, and not this new threat of being discovered for the things he’d done himself? It’s so far from reality that he can’t even conjure the image of himself, in Chan’s place, restless and haunted, and returning to be restless and haunted again. He might not like Chan the same way other people would like him, doesn’t feel entirely drawn in to the charm and warmth and friendliness, but he respects him, in his own way.

Which makes this difficult. Subin watches him all the way from the precinct to their usual coffee shop, waving and joking with people on the way. He has his back to Subin the entire time, and then he’s holding the door open, smiling, still with that sympathetic pity behind his eyes as he sees Subin’s dark circles. And all Subin can think about is how to trick him every step of the way, how much he’ll have to hide.

There’s this, too. The excited, widening eyes of a blue-haired boy behind the counter, who turns to see them both stepping through the door and waves. Chan laughs fondly and slides up to the counter, greeting Sejun and the other employee with his warmest grin, and Subin forces his legs to move, to step up to his side. Sejun fiddles with the strings of his apron subconsciously.

“I’ll take this one,” he says, his voice abnormally quiet in the polite little café that had always been Chan and Subin’s regular stop whenever they could get out of the precinct. 

Subin had been looking for someone to split rent with for a few months before Sejun had seen the ad, and almost ran out of patience when suddenly a tall, blue haired boy had knocked politely on his door. He’d just started working at a cafe down the street, and needed somewhere close to stay, to cut down on the commute. Subin’s apartment had been perfect- he’d moved in that same week. Subin had wandered into the cafe later to find him behind the counter, face set in concentration as he fiddled with the coffee machine as if he’d always been there. Some small part of Subin thinks they were always supposed to meet. Most of him thinks that’s silly.

It had certainly been a change. He hadn’t entirely been sure whether a flatmate would be a good idea, considering his temperament, but Sejun had been warm and unassuming and kind, and hadn’t caused a fuss when Subin had set the ground rules, hadn’t opposed any of Subin’s odd habits. He’s almost a constant, now, in Subin’s mind- here, in the coffee shop, home, afterwards. Subin had grown used to it without realising, until this exact moment, when his watchful eyes leave Chan’s back and find Sejun’s across the counter-top.

“What can I get for you?” Sejun asks, though he knows their orders inside out by now. Subin orders his usual. He doesn’t think about how different his life would be if he slips up. He doesn’t wonder what he’d do if he’s unable to cover up his part in this case. He waits patiently for his coffee, and listens to Chan making small talk with his flatmate, and doesn’t think about any of it.


	7. Coffee Shop

“One peppermint tea and one black coffee,” Sejun says, sliding two cardboard take-out cups across the counter. “You know where the sugar is.”

“I do indeed,” Chan says, in response, and dumps the handful of sugar packets he’d already grabbed from the side of the counter down beside his cup. He starts to pile the sugar into his coffee as Subin sighs, and reaches for his wallet.

“You should really cut that out,” he says mildly, eyeing Chan’s smile as Sejun works at the till. “If you drop dead of a heart attack, it’s me who’s going to have to find a new partner.”

“I’ll be fine,” Chan says, taking both of their cups in hand as Subin says goodbye to Sejun. “I’ve put up with a partner like you for almost a year now,” he says, as Subin holds the door, stepping into the sunlight. “I’m basically invincible, at this point.”

“I don’t know about that,” a new voice lilts. “You can never be too careful.”

Chan turns to see the boy leaning against the side of the coffee shop and laughs. Subin’s expression sours.

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your time than follow us around?”

Seungwoo straightens, stepping away from the brick wall, and shrugs. “Our meeting was purely coincidence, this time.” His eyes leave Subin and settle on Chan, as they always do, far more interested in him than in Subin’s stubborn, bored hostility.

“Going somewhere fun, officers?”

Chan half-turns to the police car waiting for them by the sidewalk. 

“Depends on your definition of fun, I suppose,” he muses, as if it’s easy to imagine that this  _ is _ something Seungwoo would do to pass the time, checking in at the scene of a violent crime just for something to do.

“Are you planning on following us there, too?”

“I told you,” Seungwoo sighs, his smile indulgent, “just a coincidence. I have work to do as well, you know.”

“Don’t tell us any more,” Chan says quickly, putting his hands up to his ears. “I don’t want to know anything I’d have to tell the Captain. He hates you enough as it is.”

“It’s a good thing you have a soft spot for me then, officer, don’t you think?”

Without denying it, Chan just laughs, both at Seungwoo’s self-satisfied grin and the dark, surly glare Subin sends him.

“Come on,” the younger boy grumbles, stepping to the car without acknowledging either of them. “We’ve wasted too much time entertaining him already.”

Though he had looked like he was enjoying their conversation with Seungwoo, as he incomprehensibly always does, Chan doesn’t argue, and follows him to the car, letting Subin drive, saying goodbye to Seungwoo over his shoulder.

“No goodbye for me, Detective Jung?”

Subin turns the ignition and ignores him. Seungwoo’s laugh is just audible over the rumble of the engine.

“Have a good day, officers!” he calls, as Chan gives him a cheery wave out of the window and Subin pulls the car away from the sidewalk. A few heads turn towards him at the volume of his cry, but he doesn’t seem to notice them, watching the police car round a corner and disappear from sight. Then his smile drops, and he rolls his eyes, and steps into the coffee shop.

The blue haired boy is serving someone by the till, so Seungwoo settles for putting his hands in his pockets and sauntering up to the other employee, a young boy with silver wire-frame glasses and auburn-red hair who looks slightly alarmed when he sees him approaching.

“Hello.” The employee nods at him, shy, and he grins, settling an elbow on the counter. “You’re new.” His eyes lower to the apron front, where a white name tag should sit, but doesn’t.

Dark eyes blink at him behind silver frames. “I-just started, yes- what can I get you?”

Seungwoo hums, turning his head only slightly to look through the glass panel of the counter beside him. “I’m not sure. What do you recommend?”

“Well, um-”

“Stop frightening him, Seungwoo, it’s his first day!”

Seungwoo turns from the wide-eyed new boy to the more familiar face beside him, hearing Sejun’s childish pout in his voice even before he meets his eye. Seungwoo laughs and steps over to his section of the counter, by the till, sensing the other employee keeping an eye on him. 

“What’s his name?”

Sejun giggles. “Like I’d tell you that.”

“You don’t trust me?” Sejun crosses his arms in an exaggerated, cross manner, and Seungwoo reasons, “Next time I’m here he’ll be wearing a nametag anyway.”

There’s a moment of silence shared between them, as Seungwoo studies Sejun’s expression and Sejun studies Seungwoo’s, trying to see any motivation, any malice, and failing at both. “It’s Wooseok,” he admits.

“There,” Seungwoo grins. “Was that so hard?”

Sejun shakes his head despite the small smile at his lips. “What can I get for you?”

“My usual,” Seungwoo replies, disinterested. He’s never really here for the coffee, anyway. “How are my favourite Detectives?”

Sejun groans, already fighting with the coffee machine, his back to Seungwoo. “You know, you always seem to show up just after those two. I never see you on days they don’t come in here.”

“Jealous?”

“Suspicious,” Sejun corrects, not unkindly. “Stalking police officers doesn’t sound like a very trustworthy thing to do. Or a smart thing, either.”

Seungwoo taps the pads of his fingers on the counter. He knew the workers would notice eventually, his odd schedule of appearing only when Subin and Chan could be found here, but he hadn’t betted on Subin having such an advantage. Sejun seems far more protective of him than Seungwoo had expected him to be. Strange, for a flatmate. Just how does Subin manage to keep close to someone so kind and undamaged? 

It really is unfortunate that the coffeeshop is no longer neutral territory. Did Subin find a flatmate who works here for this exact reason? To keep an eye on Seungwoo?

Probably not, Seungwoo thinks, as he accepts his coffee and points to a pastry. Subin wouldn’t care that much for his whereabouts.

“You’re staring,” Seungwoo says, forcing himself out of his brooding, sliding his eyes over to the new employee, who flushes when he sees eyes on him.

“Sorry, I wasn’t- I was just wondering...how you got the scar.” He taps a spot on his bicep, and Seungwoo looks down at his own arm, as if forgetting about the raised white flesh there, two tiny scars like a vampire bite.

“Oh.”

Sejun returns with a paper bag and a concerned frown. “Wooseok, that’s not-”

“My brother got me with a stapler gun.”

Both of them gape at him. He smiles, and takes a sip of his coffee.

Though he’s quiet as he works the till, it doesn’t take long for Sejun’s curiosity to win out over his politeness, and just as Seungwoo’s about to step away and leave the coffee shop, he asks, “You have a brother?”

Seungwoo looks back at him, innocently confused. “Do I?”

Sejun frowns. The tall, slightly extravagant boy had been a regular at this shop even before he started working here, apparently, and they’d met often, if fleetingly, since then. But he doesn’t really know anything about him. He knows that he always and only shows up after Subin and Chan, though they never come in together, and he has a habit of smiling like he knows something you don’t, and usually does. He’d been friendly, in a teasing kind of way, despite his intimidating first impression. And every now and again he gives the slightest fragment of himself away, but Sejun can never tell if he’s joking or not.

Seungwoo raises his cup in thanks and winks at Wooseok on his way to the door. 

“Who was that?” Wooseok asks, immediately after the door swings closed behind him.

Sejun shrugs, unsure of how to answer. “A strange regular. You get used to him.”

Wooseok adjusts his glasses so they sit straighter. It seems like he's no longer interested in their conversation, but Sejun knows better, and waits for the curiosity to over spill again. He's had too many colleagues and too many customers with questions to think the conversations going to end just like that.

He's right- Wooseok asks, "What's his deal?"

It's the last thing Sejun wants to talk about, but he's too polite to oppose, so he settles for something unassuming, not looking up as he replies. "What d'you mean?"

"Like, who is he? What does he do?"

Sejun laughs as he polishes the glass of a counter. He'd long since discarded those questions from his own mind. "Don't ask."

"You don't know?"

"I know his name," Sejun shrugs. "I don't think I want to know anything else."

Wooseok's distracted gaze seems to disagree. 

"Just..."

_Stay away from him, Sejun._

_What are you talking about? Why?_

_I can't explain, just trust me. He's trouble, alright? You don't tell him anything._

Chan had warned him, all those weeks ago, the first time he'd came into the shop and saw Seungwoo lounging against the counter, making Sejun laugh. They'd seemed friendly, face to face, but as soon as the bright-haired boy was gone, Chan had gotten serious. Serious was a strange thing to see in him. Subin hadn't said anything, had turned the conversation away when Sejun had asked later, at home, what Chan had meant. But there had been something in his gaze that looked like a warning, too. Sejun had been more cautious, since then. He'd picked up on all of the times Seungwoo had tried to get information out of him, not knowing why but now aware of all the subtle manipulations, and he'd felt his trust waver.

"Forget about him," he sighs, not nearly as nonchalant as he hopes he sounds. "He's just a flirt, he's always like that."

Wooseok nods, and Sejun's glad to see him less distracted, as the day grinds on. Hopefully, he'll forget all about the encounter by the end of the day, and won't be so curious.

Sejun doesn't know what's wrong with Seungwoo, but he trusts Subin, and he trusts Chan, too, even if they don't know each other as much. If they say to stay away, stay cautious, it's what he'll do.

He tries not to think about the reason for their warning. He tries not to think about the clockword mechanics of it, their leaving and Seungwoo's arriving, as if he trails them all day long, stops where they stop. He doesn't quite manage it.


	8. The Scene Of The Crime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please notice I've removed the 'not graphic' tag?? this gets a little graphic. not very detailed, but if that's something you're wary of, just thought i'd warn you :[

“D’you want the bad news?” Chan asks, as Subin parks the car outside a block of warehouses and switches off the navigation.

“Don’t tell me,” Subin says drily, gazing through the window at a towering building, “we’re going to the top, aren’t we?”

“Yup.”

They step out onto the asphalt, the car clicking locked behind them by the sidewalk, feeling a cold wind blowing across their skin. The warehouse they’d been directed to is a towering block of grey stone, ancient and weathered, rundown like something out of a horror movie. The only thing Subin had liked more than the dramatics of it was how far removed it is from the city, in amongst other, towering blocks of stone almost identical to it, nothing but brick and asphalt for miles in every direction, a forest of concrete. He knows exactly where the body had been found- not because of the report, or hearing the strange confession around the precinct, but because he’d put it there himself, and had never expected someone else to lay claim to it, never expected it to be found.

Neither of them move, for a moment, craning their necks up to see the top floor. Then Chan laughs, at the two of them.

“Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

They're quiet on the walk across the empty, vast stretch of asphalt, and then they’re inside the warehouse, the door creaking agonisingly behind them as they step onto the ground floor. Nothing inside but dust and darkness, just as Subin remembers it, though now the hour is earlier, and the darkness has taken on an amber kind of glow, not quite obstructing the view of blocks of cinder and the odd disintegrating desk as they walk to the back of the room. It’s stranger to see it in what remains of the daylight, a cavernous space with dust mites floating in the air as they walk through rooms frozen in time, silent and motionless and empty. 

There’s a rusting elevator at the back of the room and then, to one side, a narrow stairwell by the grimy windows that are turning the light orange. Chan takes one short look up the stairs and gives a nervous laugh that echoes in the emptiness.

“Why do they always put the stairs next to the windows?” he whines.

"For the view," Subin says, grandly waving a hand toward the grimy glass. His eyes flicker over Chan's face, drinking in his hesitation. “You can’t even see out of them, it'll be fine.”

Chan shakes his head. “Meet you up there?” he asks, trying for an unbothered smile.

Subin studies his expression. Chan’s good at hiding his fear on the job, when he’s in real danger, but it’s always in situations like this that his human side gleams through. His eyes are slightly too wide as they peer up the stairwell.

Subin glances at the elevator he’d immediately ruled out and raises a brow. “You’re really going to get in that death trap by yourself?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Chan breathes. He steps away, and glances back at Subin, seeing the younger boy’s eyes clinging to his expression and mistaking his watchfulness for concern. “I’m fine,” he reassures. “It’s you that’s going to be panting all the way up those stairs. I’ll meet you up there.”

Subin nods, but doesn’t move. His eyes hunger across Chan’s expression, the way his hands are fisted at his side, the slight cower to his shoulders, as the elevator doors grind open and his partner steps inside. Then he turns and starts forward up the stairs.

He’s regretting not just biting down on his own fear and taking the elevator by the time he gets to the last set of stairs. He’d taken the lift that night, months ago, when he’d been dragging someone through these empty rooms, partly because the high had erased most of his terror, and being enclosed in such a small space had been easier, knowing his prey was trapped with him. A small part of him had also thought that, in the unlikely chance the body was found, taking it all the way to the top floor might turn any suspicion away from himself. Everyone in the precinct knows the reason Subin always takes the stairs.

Chan’s waiting for him with a pitying smile when he eventually drags himself up the last step, and finds himself in the expansive, single room that makes up the fortieth floor, the top floor.

“Enjoy the stroll?”

Subin ignores him. “Remind me why we’re here, again.”

“Because some of us need help visualising what we’re working with,” Chan says, as if explaining to an unruly toddler. Subin rolls his eyes.

“Everything should be in the report.”

“It won’t hurt to go over it all again, come on.”    


Sighing, Subin steps out of the pocket of darkness in the doorless arch leading to the stairs and into the room, his heels clicking on cracked granite as he approaches. Chan has his arms crossed over his chest, as he always does when he’s concentrating, and doesn’t look at Subin as he stops, instead spinning slowly and casting his eyes over every surface of the room around them.

“What do we know?” he asks, just as he always does.

There’s a file in the bag Subin’s carrying, but he doesn’t reach for it. “The warehouse had been scheduled for demolition in January, but the company responsible went bankrupt soon after the announcement, and so the buildings have been empty since the end of March.”

“And the body was found-”

“Decaying under a layer of concrete, in the back wall.”

He points to the space the detectives before them had plowed through to find the victim, and Chan nods, stepping closer to the wall and peering at the cracks in the bricks, the crumbling stone that had come loose and still lies at their feet in tiny, sharp fragments.

“Decaying?”

Subin casts his mind back to how it had been described in the report. “Unnaturally. Forensics ruled it had been interfered with in some way that accelerated the deterioration process in an attempt to stop identification, should it have been found.”

“Strange,” Chan muses, already picking up on the detail the original detectives had overlooked. “Why would you go to all that effort to hide a body if you were just going to confess, and lead people straight to it?” Subin hovers behind him, not answering, watching him carefully, and Chan unfolds his arms and nods again. “Go on.”

“There weren’t any traces of blood found on the scene,” Subin continues, “so it was ruled the act itself was committed elsewhere.”

“We should know that too, shouldn’t we?”

With a shake of his head, Subin adds, “The suspect wouldn’t confess where.”

A flicker of irritation passes over Chan’s calm expression. Not for the first time, Subin wonders what might have happened if Chan had been assigned this case when the confession had come in. 

“Right. Alright.” He takes a deep, grounding breath, and the annoyance vanishes from his face- Subin debates telling him more, about all the things the original detectives had gotten wrong, just for the chance of seeing his anger leak back in, but thinks better of it as he sees Chan swallow and pull at his collar. He’s clearly gearing up to ask something he doesn’t want the answer to. Subin knows what it is, knows every secret little detail of the answer. But he wants to hear it, so rather than answering right away, he waits.

Eventually, Chan asks, softly, “How did it happen?”

Now, Subin reaches for the file. Every particular comes easily to him, but if he answers without checking the official report, he could mention things he shouldn’t know yet. He contents himself with reading, and glancing up every now and again as he does to watch Chan’s expression.

“They found sleeping pills in the victim’s stomach,” he starts, already seeing the distaste overcoming Chan’s attempted impartiality, turning the corners of his lips down into a grimace. “The cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation, marks found on the victim’s neck suggesting prolonged strangulation from behind with a wire.”

“Wire?” Chan repeats.

“An educated guess-” Subin wishes he could roll his eyes right now “-confirmed by the suspect in court.”

Chan taps the fingertips of one hand on the bicep of his other arm. “What kind of wire?”

“Their best guess was some kind of fishing line, judging by the bruises.”

“Strange again,” Chan sighs. “The suspect didn’t confirm the murder weapon?”

“No. He was tight lipped, for someone making a confession.”

“And he was still convicted,” Chan adds, shaking his head. “Our new friend Seungsik really _doesn’t_ know what he’s doing, does he?”

“It was a guilty plea," Subin reasons. "All Attorney Kang could do was negotiate for a lessened sentence.”

“And no success there, either. What else?”

Subin’s dark eyes linger on Chan’s careful frown. It had been another breathy question, one he doesn’t want answered.  Subin asks, “What do you mean?”, even though he knows.

It takes a moment for Chan to force the words out, to shape them into something unassuming and polite, a euphemism subtly sidestepping any graphics. “What happened after? You must have heard about this case around the office, right?”

The file wrinkles as Subin lowers it to his side. “You think I partake in precinct gossip?”

“It was a bad one, Bin,” Chan sighs, looking slightly shaken, not even amused by the reference to Subin’s infamous reclusiveness as he’d usually be. “No one wanted to work this case.”

Subin glances down at the report hanging in his hand. “I haven’t read that part yet,” he says. “Tell me.”

Chan doesn’t look at him. “It might be easier if you just read the-”

“Please.”

Eyes flicker from the broken pieces of concrete littering the ground to Subin’s face, as Chan studies every inch of his expression, and then deflates. “Alright.” He swallows thickly, and uncrosses his arms, trying to work up the nerve to tell a story Subin already knows in very vivid detail. He thinks Subin’s scared to read the report by himself. It’s endearing, Subin thinks- or it would be, to someone else. He’s too busy drinking in every shift in Chan’s expression to think much about how nice it is, that he’d recount everything he’d been trying to forget, just for Subin.

“They found most of the victim in the concrete,” Chan starts, and then stops. Subin waits, but Chan shakes his head, staring at the hole in the concrete in front of him. 

“ _Most_ of him?” Subin prompts.

Chan turns away. “Read the file, Subin.”

There’s a finality to his voice that Subin knows he shouldn’t argue with. He raises the file back in the air, glancing over the impartial black letters printed there, pretending to read them.

“Accelerated disintegration...three...missing fingers.” 

_Something warm and metallic washing over his fingers, thick like syrup, cloying._

“Fractured collarbone, shattered wrist.”

_ The snap of bone echoing around him, the feeling of something breaking in his grasp.  _

“One eye-”

“You should have read the report already,” Chan interrupts. His voice had been loud enough to drown the rest of Subin’s sentence out. Slowly, Subin lowers the file.

_ Something that’d make him forgive you... _

“Sejun isn’t feeling well,” he says.

A hand strays to his stomach as Chan lets out a shivering breath. “Sejun’s not the only one.”

The file crumples back into the bottom of his bag. “I’m sorry,” Subin murmurs. He takes a small, shuffling step forward. “I should have-”

“No,” Chan cuts in, “don’t, it’s...it’s fine, you did the right thing. Look after Sejun. Just make sure to study up fast so we can solve this, alright?”

“Alright,” Subin agrees.

The sound of his footsteps echoes in the silence as he steps closer to Chan, by the wall, granite crunching under his feet. Over Chan's shoulder, Subin stares at the shattered stone, how the granite has been caved in, jagged and crumbling at the edges of a whole battered into its middle.

“What about the-” Chan turns his head, still not quite looking away from the damaged wall, as Subin pauses- “spare parts?”

“They found a few of them on the lower floors.”

_ Just a few. _

Chan’s being far too quiet. There’s always a part of their investigation that turns him quiet, the guilty kind, as if he can never bring himself to mention what he’s asking of Subin. He thinks it’s damaging, probably. Definitely stressful. Perhaps traumatic. But it’s going to be even easier than it usually is, this time.

“This is my part, isn’t it?”

The dry acceptance in Subin’s voice brings out some of Chan’s usual good humour. He turns away from the wall and gives Subin a wry smile. “Did you think I brought you along just to keep me company? There are things you need to find, little magpie.” Subin rolls his eyes at the old nickname, stepping back as Chan reaches for him, to poke or prod or ruffle his hair fondly.

“Fine,” he sighs, as if what’s being asked of him is difficult and unpleasant. “Let's go back outside and get on with it. And stop looking like a kicked puppy, would you? It’s hard to concentrate with you dragging your feet along behind me.” 

Chan immediately covers up the uncomfortable despondency that's deflating him, drawing up straighter and charging ahead with only a single nod in reply. Subin allows himself a fleeting almost-smile, and then he follows him out into the daylight.


	9. Little Magpie

When Subin had arrived in the precinct, he’d been an unresponsive, solitary boy with a crop of snow-white hair, his natural dark shade growing back at the roots, with a penchant for finding hidden things. Witnesses and weapons, bodies and spare parts- whatever it was, he’d find it, no matter how strange the hiding place. Chan had jokingly called him magpie the first case they’d worked together, and saw that, even as the boy had rolled his eyes and complained about it, the name had pleased him a little, too. 

Chan, of course, could find everything himself, given some more time. He’s no stranger to impulsive leads, epiphanies, leaving others behind. But he’d never been as gifted at stepping onto a scene and letting it soak through him, letting it turn him into someone else. Subin is a far more talented body-jumper, becoming someone he isn’t, someone who knows all the things he doesn’t, following strangers’ lines of logic perfectly to where they need to be. Saying Chan loathes asking him to practice this skill would be an understatement, but so is saying it’s a necessary evil to solve the tricky cases, and this certainly seems to be one of those. 

Reminiscing wont make this easier. Chan turns his thoughts away from their past cases, to this one, to the present.

There are four buildings like compass points in every direction as they stand in a clearing of concrete, all leering, crumbling stone, identical but for the odd smashed window, damp patch or cracks in the brick. The one at the northern point is the one they’ve just exited, where most of the body was found. Chan tells Subin that some ‘spare parts’ had been found in the neighbouring building, at the west point of the compass. The other two had been searched, with no success.

Subin shakes out his limbs and takes a steadying breath.

“Remind me what I’m looking for.”

Chan always gets over his squeamishness at this point- perhaps because he thinks he ought to be strong, when Subin appears to be in a worse situation than himself. He couldn’t know Subin actually enjoys this part.

“Right index finger and ring finger, right eye, some fragments of bone.” 

He knows the answer to every question already, but Subin’s careful to go through the motions, to make it seem like this crime scene is the same as any other, that he knows no more than he usually does, so he asks, “That’s it?”

“They think so. It was hard to tell, in some places, whether things had been removed or decayed away.”

Subin nods. “Alright. Then...the body was found here-” he points to the building in front of them- “and some of the pieces were found here-” with a point to the west facing tower block. “And both the east and south buildings in this block were searched and came up empty.”

“Right.”

“So there were no disruptions in the concrete, because they would have been looking for signs of that after finding the body behind a wall.”

“They searched the walls and floors of the other buildings too,” Chan adds. 

“Hiding things in the same way would be riskier than changing tactics.”

As always, Chan doesn’t challenge his intuition, just asks, “What does that mean for us?”

Subin leaves a reasonable gap before he answers to make it seem as if he’d needed to think about this. “They won’t be behind concrete. We should look elsewhere.”

Again, this is accepted. Experience has taught Chan well, to discard his reasonable doubt. “Where? Desks? Patches of grass that could be dug up?”

This is usually the part Subin would be too thoughtful to explain- he begins making his way across the asphalt to the east facing building. “Let’s start here.”

He’s not always right the first time. Sometimes he is, but others it takes a while to unravel his thoughts enough to follow the right strand, to understand the feeling in his gut enough. He knows there’s nothing in this building, even as he and Chan turn over every dusty inch of it, and Chan takes the elevator, and he takes the stairs.

“Nothing,” Chan says, frustrated but unblaming, when they’ve searched all the way to the top and back again. The lobby, just as it had been in the first building, is amber and eerie, and they’re coughing as they step back outside, lungs full of dust and limbs tired from searching.

“We can always come back tomorrow,” Chan offers, as Subin leads him into another building, but even as he’s saying it it’s clear he wants to keep going.

Subin shakes his head and points him over to a pile of abandoned electrical equipment by one of the walls.

“D’you think they took some of it away with them?” Chan asks, when the second building turns up nothing. Subin had contemplated leading them to the right spot after choosing the first wrong building, but then had considered the surprise might be exaggerated if he led Chan on a fruitless, long search before bringing him to the treasure, and had been unable to help himself from leading them astray. 

“The deterioration had been sped up and the victim was still encased in concrete at an abandoned warehouse, scattered in every direction. Does it seem as if whoever did it would be careless enough to keep trophies?”

“Alright, Subin, I was just asking. Not all of us are as good at this as you are, you know.”

Silently, Subin curses himself. He hadn’t meant to sound defensive, but at least Chan had thought the edge to his voice was only tired frustration, and not prideful irritation.

Just in case, the third building he brings them to is the right one.

“Why?” Chan asks, when Subin says they should check a building further back, two rows behind the east building they’d already checked with no success.

Subin shrugs. “Just a feeling.” It’s something he’s said before, more sincerely, and Chan doesn’t think it strange.

“Should we start from the top and make our way down this time?”

“He butchered the body, then carried it all the way to the top of the first building,” Subin reasons. “And the pieces the investigating team found in another were towards the top too. He’d be tired. I doubt he’d make it to another thirtieth floor, even with the adrenaline high.”

“ _ He _ ?” Chan repeats. It would be a reasonable thing to say, statistically, and they both know it, but Subin usually has hunches about these things, and Chan has picked up on the certainty behind the pronoun.

It had been a mistake, but not an irreparable one. Subin says, “The suspect they arrested was a man.”

“You don’t think they got the wrong person?”

Subin steps away from a broken printer and turns to study Chan’s expression. “Do you?”

His partner shrugs. “Seungwoo said so.”

“And he’s perfectly trustworthy,” Subin mutters, rolling his eyes. Chan laughs, but doesn’t go back to rifling through a disintegrating pile of paperwork, keeping his eyes on Subin.

“What he told us was convincing, wasn’t it?” he asks.

_ Too damned convincing.  _

“It would be, if we knew it were true.”

“I don’t trust him either,” Chan grumbles, which would be surprising, if it were true. “But he’s never been wrong before. I think it’s safe to assume he’s right this time, too.”

_ Safe isn’t the word I’d use. _

Subin slams a desk drawer shut and steps back. “There’s nothing on this floor. Let’s go up another.”

Chan peers more closely at him, concerned. “Are you feeling alright? It doesn’t usually take you this long.”

It doesn’t, but if he were new to this case, as he should be, it would likely take longer than usual to get into the right mindset. “I’m not  _ usually _ looking for such small parts. Bodies are easier to find. Plus, there’s not usually this many hiding places.”

And it had been fun, watching Chan puzzle over everything. The mention of Seungwoo has slightly dampened the mood, so Subin takes Chan’s arm and forces him up another flight of stairs, to the twenty-something floor, Chan’s fingertips digging in slightly at the soft flesh of his wrist as they climb higher and higher.

The door handle is too loose to turn fully, so the door doesn’t budge until Subin gives it a carefully aimed shove and it cracks open slightly. The smell hits them immediately.

Chan gags. 

“You know what, I have a really good feeling about the next level up-”

“You’re not leaving me to search this floor myself,” Subin insists. Chan groans, but lets Subin drag him through the doorway, one hand covering his mouth and nose.

“Hurry up and find something before I hurl, would you?”

Subin releases him, rolling his eyes. “The smell isn't as bad now.”

The hand over his mouth muffles Chan’s voice as he mutters, “Like I’d fall for that.”

He yelps as Subin reaches out and wrestles his arm away, exposing his face, but then freezes. 

“Huh. You’re right.”

The centre of the room is more bearable, the stench less noticeable now the door is standing open and the air is escaping. But there’s another problem-

“There’s nothing in here.”

Subin casts his eyes around the storey. There are no desks, no papers, no equipment. The walls and the windows are all intact, and a thick coat of dust has settled beneath their feet. Nowhere to hide anything, at first glance.

“There’s something here,” Subin urges. “I know there is.”

The heels of their shoes scrape through dust as Chan paces over to the walls, running his fingertips lightly across the bricks. Subin remains where he is, right in the middle of the room.

“If I were an eyeball,” Chan says drily, by now channeling his fatigue and disgust into dark humour, “where would I be?”

“You might want to cover your nose,” Subin says.

With a half-relieved, half-dreading sound, Chan turns towards him, and Subin feels eyes on his back as he steps away, towards the door. The handle detaches easily, metal scraping metal for a moment before it twists free, a cold copper sphere in the palm of his hand. He turns it, to see whether anything has been stuffed inside, and then looks sharply away.

Chan curses softly under his breath. “Seriously? What would possess someone-”

“Other than the likelihood of no one finding it?” Subin shrugs. “They probably enjoyed the idea of someone opening the door without knowing what they were touching. Hand me a bag.”

Pale, Chan rifles through the satchel for a plastic bag, holding one out to Subin and shivering exaggeratedly as the younger boy drops the door handle inside and seals the bag shut.

“The sun’s setting,” he points out. “And I’d  _ kill _ for a shower and a coffee right now, so unless you have any other hunches or epiphanies-”

“No, you’re right. We should get out of here.” He shakes the plastic bag in the air, and Chan moans nauseously, making him chuckle. “I’ll send this for testing. You can call it a day.”

“I’d argue with you,” Chan says, gesturing to the bag Subin’s holding away from himself, “but I’d rather not be anywhere near that thing when they pry it loose.”

Subin holds the door for him, palm flat against the dusty wood. “Let’s get out of here.”


	10. History

Both of them become aware of a distant voice at the same time.

"Yeah, we had a fling or two, him and I. A pretty good kisser! But not all there, you know, a few cents short of a dollar, if you know what I mean-"

Chan and Subin both look up from their computer screens to see Seungwoo perched happily on the edge of Byungchan's desk, looking down at a file Byungchan's clutching like a lifeline, smiling as he looks Byungchan up and down and sees the pure terror behind the other boy’s eyes and the blush colouring him a rosy shade of pink.

"Seungwoo," Chan sighs. Seungwoo glances across the precinct at them, casually, as if he were just another one of their colleagues and not someone who definitely snuck in to a police precinct he doesn't belong in, and they both roll their chairs away from their desk and cross the floor, Byungchan sighing with grateful relief as Seungwoo’s eyes shift from him to the officers. Subin plucks the file out of Byungchan's hand before Seungwoo can read any more information he shouldn’t know.

He glances down at the picture of a man he's never seen before and raises an unimpressed brow, looking over the paper at Seungwoo, who smiles widely, knowing very well Subin will never be able to explain how he knows Seungwoo's real dating history, and so can’t call his bluff.

“What’re you doing here, trouble?”

“Just thought I’d pop in to say hello,” Seungwoo grins, all innocence. “I have a coffee date nearby.”

“Exciting,” Chan says, playing along. “Anyone I’ve arrested before?”

Though Seungwoo smiles secretively, he doesn’t spend long considering the likelihood of this- he shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

Subin crosses his arms and interrupts the pleasantries with a bored tone. “Why’re you really here?”

Both of them sigh: Chan with a knowing fondness, Seungwoo with an exasperated disappointment, as if, just for once, he’d wanted Subin to keep up the facade of normality with them, as if they were all friends, as if he enjoyed Seungwoo’s amused lies and candied smiles. 

But Seungwoo drops the joke anyway, with a shrug. “Haven’t we danced this dance enough times for you to know already? I have a tip.”

Though Chan’s face lights up, he asks, “What’s the price this time?”

Seungwoo makes a show of considering his options even though the way his eyes have settled on Subin and haven’t budged an inch already reveals his answer before he’s saying, “The usual, but this time I'll only give it to one of you.”

“Let me guess,” Chan laughs, and his gaze lands on Subin’s dark expression, not bothering to finish his sentence.

“What d’you say, Detective? Give me a moment of your time?”

Subin’s glare lightens only slightly as it’s redirected at Chan. “As if I have any choice.”

In response, his partner laughs and shoves him in the direction of the conference room, Seungwoo’s matching giggle sounding behind him as the taller boy jumps from his perch on the desk and follows him through the office. Subin shuts the door to the conference room behind them, conscious of the fact that the blinds have been drawn, and as Seungwoo steps further into the room beside the long conference table, the people outside of the room can't see in.

Seungwoo seems conscious of this too, because he smiles, and tips his head. “Hey, _bro._ ”

Subin rolls his eyes. “Do you really have a tip, or are you just here to bother me?”

“I can’t come see how my baby brother’s getting on at work? Jung Subin, detective extraordinaire. If only mother dearest could see you now.”

“I don’t have time to reminisce about our childhood right now, Seungwoo, I actually have work to do.”

Seungwoo hums noncommittally and settles on top of the long table. There's a pile of photographs face down beside him, where Chan and Subin had left them after a long night poring over the case, face down. Seungwoo picks one up and glances at the body, though Subin's sure he must already know what he'll see. He sets it down quickly, wrinkling his nose. “Did you really do it?”

“Keep your voice down. Actually, no, just get out, if you have nothing to tell me.”

Seungwoo grins and raises his voice. “They’d never believe it was you even if they heard-”

“ _Out,_ Seungwoo,” Subin hisses, grabbing his brother's arm and shoving him closer to the door, “or they’ll suddenly find it very easy to believe me capable of it.”

Seungwoo’s amused gaze sharpens as he shrugs out of his grip. Their eyes lock. “You’re saying you don’t need my help?” Seungwoo asks, dangerously quiet, towering above Subin, gaze intent and knowing and a little hurt.

Subin scowls. “I can handle this on my own, just as I always have.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Seungwoo laughs, a bitter bark of sound, at Subin’s stubbornly blank expression. “You think I haven’t had a hand in how easily you slip the blame?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Subin says, monotone only because he knows how much it annoys his brother.

“Right,” Seungwoo breathes. “Of course you don’t. And I knew it was you because you’re so open about telling me the grizzly details of what you do outside of work.”

Subin doesn’t know how he knew. Their conversation in the elevator had revealed nothing of Seungwoo’s intentions, none of his sources. The crime Subin had thought he’d covered up so well had not only been found out by someone who confessed to it as if it was his own murder scene, but also his older brother, who’s here trying to convince him he’d told no one. Can they really not be connected?

But Subin’s not entirely sure, either, whether Seungwoo really _knows_ , or he’s waiting for some slip to confirm a vague suspicion, so he asks, “Why did you think it was me?”

His brother rolls his eyes. “I _know_ it was you, Subin. You can drop the pretences.”

“Fine,” Subin grumbles. “How did you _know_ it was me? Someone else already took the fall. That confession got him 25 years to life, it convinced everyone else.”

“And I’ve already told you and that lovely partner of yours how I knew it wasn’t really him,” Seungwoo points out. When Subin doesn’t budge, doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare as if waiting for another answer, he sighs. “I know it was you because I know _you_ , Subin. I watched you tear the wings off your first butterfly, saw how you scared all of the kids in our neighbourhood. I know what your trail looks like, the things you leave behind.”

“How very clever of you then. Do you expect a reward?”

“Perhaps a little more gratitude. You don’t know half of the things I’ve done to cover for you.”

Subin shakes his head. “I never asked you to interfere.”

“Great,” Seungwoo scoffs. The rising anger he’d been trying to push down so desperately, knowing it’s just what Subin wants to see, is threatening to over spill, and his words come fast, his smile long forgotten. “And just like every other time, I’m sure you have this _entirely_ under control.” He shakes his head, when Subin says nothing, and steps toward the door. His tone is bitter as he adds, “When you suddenly decide that you have a favour to ask, you know where to find me,” and then he’s gone.

Chan smiles sheepishly as Subin steps out of the conference room a few seconds later, his face full of thunder as he closes the door softly behind him.

“Anything interesting?”

Byungchan is suddenly hopelessly busy as Subin stops by the receptionist’s desk, dropping whatever conversation he’d been having with Chan in a heartbeat and becoming absorbed in work he’d put off under any other circumstance than Subin lingering beside him. Subin just rolls his eyes.

“A complete waste of time. I need coffee.”

Chan laughs. “I’ll go get-”

“Not the shitty instant kind from the break room,” Subin bites, making Byungchan wince.

Chan silently drops the pen he’d been fiddling with back onto Byungchan’s desk, eyeing Subin’s expression carefully. Subin makes no effort to hide the anger he knows must be visible there, the darkness of his gaze, because Chan has witnessed his reaction to Seungwoo before, and even if he doesn’t entirely understand why the older boy is so adept at getting under his skin, it’s nothing new. And he knows what Subin means, when he grumbles about the office coffee.

“Oh. Right.” He glances at his watch, and then at the bundle of files on his desk, across the office, but then relents. When Subin says it like that, coffee doesn’t mean coffee, coffee means tea, and the grumbling means that he won’t be satisfied with the usual bags of breakfast someone had added to the break room stash. He’s using the excuse of his usual snobbery and the added stress of dealing with Seungwoo to go see Sejun, like he’s done so many times before. Chan doesn’t want to stand between them.

“Fine. Just a quick stop, though.” He could really do with a coffee himself, and Subin’s right, at least, in thinking Sejun can provide one better than the barely stomach-able stuff they have in the precinct.

Subin knows how this looks. He knows the insistence of leaving the office once in a while to visit the coffee shop- more accurately, someone _in_ the coffee shop- is childish, and it’s an impulse he tries to squash when he can, lest Chan start to think of him as a slacker. He knows Chan agrees because he thinks Sejun takes comfort from Sejun, that perhaps their relationship is more complicated than simple friends and flatmates, and Chan, Chan who always wants to look out for him, is so fond of Sejun to think him a good influence, to encourage their being together. The annoying thing is, Subin isn’t sure he’s wrong. He himself isn’t sure of the reason he feels these urges sometimes, when the work gets difficult, when he’s stuck or Seungwoo and Chan are driving him up walls. He doesn’t understand why there’s only one person he wants to see when he gets like this, doesn’t understand why Sejun’s sympathy makes him feel marginally better about it all. 

But it does. Even now, as Seungwoo’s bitter words echo in the back of his mind, walking into the shop and seeing a familiar, bright haired boy smiling at him from behind a counter- it does _something._ Subin’s not sure he has the equipment needed, to work out what exactly it does to him, but he knows that it’s good.

“Bad day?” Sejun asks, as Chan lingers almost out of earshot behind Subin, and Subin pretends not to know he’s eavesdropping.

He slides the styrofoam cup Sejun had set down across the counter towards him. “You could say that.”

“Then you should eat something, too. Sugar will help. _Lots_ of sugar.”

Sejun moves a pace to the left and reaches inside the glass counter. Rather than looking to see what he’s doing, Subin watches his face, instead, the almost secretive, begrudging happiness in it as he boxes something and slides it across with Chan’s coffee, as if they were the only two people in the store, as if even when he’s sullen and quiet and ill-tempered, seeing Subin might make his day a little better, too.

It’s a good feeling, to realise that, that he’s not the only person caught up in whatever it is that’s grown between them. But not all good. Subin knows the side of him that he doesn’t let see the light, the side he can never show Sejun, always has its say, too. Everything is taken to extremes, with Subin. He can’t just _like_ something, without this darker fixation, and that’s what really makes things so complicated. There are millions of ways he could get caught, but only one he’d do so willingly. His mind had conjured the scenario a million times, late at night, whenever his thoughts had wandered. If something were to happen to Sejun, even if Chan were there to see what Subin would do to whoever had inflicted the damage, Subin knows he wouldn’t hesitate. His careful control would shatter, and he’d let it.

“Subin?”

He glances up to see Sejun peering at him closely, eyes wide and curious, sympathy turning the corners of his lips down.

“Hm? Oh. It’s nothing.”

“Eat, at least.”

Subin nods and accepts whatever's in the box, swiping it with whatever fraction of a smile he can manage to muster, and Chan’s eyes flicker to it as he steps back up to his partner, passing him his coffee.

“Those better be donuts.”

Subin rolls his eyes. “You’re such a cliché.”

Both Sejun and Chan laugh at him, though he hadn’t meant to be funny, and Chan takes a sip of still-scalding coffee. “Maybe I-” his eyes slide across the shop and he stops, mid-sentence, as they snag on a familiar face.

Subin turns to see Seungwoo waving at them from a table in the middle of the cafe. A polite smile barely covers the smug amusement in his eyes as they both hesitantly step up to his table. 

“What a coincidence, Officers.”

Chan chuckles, by now so used to the other boy popping up when they don’t expect him that he’s forgotten to be surprised. “What’re you doing here?”

Seungwoo raises a brow. “Did I not tell you? You can’t have forgotten already.”

Both of them turn to the man opposite him at the table, who’d had his back to them when they’d spotted Seungwoo, but now that they’re level with the table looks up at them with wide-eyed surprise and a bashful blush, tugging at the sleeves of his suit jacket as if he might pull hard enough to stretch the fabric and hide himself from view.

“I thought you were joking,” Chan says, and then slaps a hand to his mouth, realising he’d spoken aloud. Subin himself hadn’t realised Seungwoo was being serious.

Seungwoo just giggles, though when Seungsik looks between them with a frown, he explains, “I told them I had a coffee date this morning. Clearly, they didn’t believe me.”

“Ah,” Seungsik nods, surprising them both by not denying it. Then his expression turns troubled. “Do you- do you often give them cause to distrust you?”

Subin’s eyes narrow.

“No! It’s not that,” Chan says hurriedly, even though that’s exactly what it is. “He just jokes around a lot, keeps us on our toes.”

Nodding, Seungsik sips from his coffee, still looking uncertain. “I see.” 

“So...you’re really on a date?”

Subin grimaces. Even to him, this is torturous. “You’re making it awkward, Ch-”

“Yes,” Seungsik says, a shaky smile on his lips.

Seungwoo smirks at the two of them. “Is there a problem, officers?”

_What the hell is he playing at?_

“Of course not,” Chan laughs, but it’s an uncertain sound. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“I wouldn’t say we do,” Seungsik reasons, and Seungwoo shrugs.

Subin sighs. “You could do better,” he tells Seungsik, seeing his eyes widen innocently at the bluntness, wondering whether the reaction is real. He doesn’t know what Seungwoo’s intentions are, messing with the attorney working on his brother’s murder case, but he doesn’t know what Seungsik’s doing here, either. Sure, Seungwoo can be charming when he wants to be. But they’re a strange pair, with Seungsik’s politeness and apparent professionalism, his good manners, and Seungwoo’s freer bravado. 

“I wasn’t aware you knew each other, either,” Seungsik is replying, looking between Seungwoo and Subin, ignoring Chan, and Subin wonders whether he’s overstepped. He’d sounded as if he’d really meant it, and now it’s clear that he knows quite a lot about Seungwoo, to speak with such conviction. Maybe he should have kept the insult to himself.

But Seungwoo doesn’t seem worried- he laughs. “We bump into each other a lot,” he says, grinning up at Chan. “Frequent the same coffee shops.”

Seungsik nods, and a silence settles, Seungwoo smirking at the awkwardness, and Subin tugs at Chan’s jacket. His partner coughs, and speeds back into action.

“Right, well, we should be getting back to work, actually.” His words are fast, and he’s already stepping back, Seungsik looking slightly alarmed at the sudden change. “We’ll leave you to your-date.”

“Have a nice day, Officers,” Seungwoo says cheerily.

Subin glares, but pulls Chan out of the coffee shop without replying.


	11. Interrogations

Overall, it’s underwhelming. The experience, the man, the reactions he gives to their questions, even the frustration clear in Chan’s face as the investigation continues. It’s apparently his first time leaving his cell since his incarceration, because even exercising, he’d refused to leave his cell, but there’s no relief in him. There doesn’t seem to be much of anything in him. He’s corpse-like, as Chan and Subin enter, set themselves up on the other side of the table, and start their questions. His eyes are dull and sunken in the way Subin has seen in countless other suspects, though this time they bear no malice either, no ill-intent. Subin hates him from the first.

“D’you know what this is?” Chan asks, ashy-looking already in the dim light, as the questions drag on, and none get proper answers. It’s wearing on him, and Subin can’t even enjoy it, because it’s wearing on him, too.

The suspect eyes the plastic bag Chan had set onto the table. There’s an eyeball inside. He doesn’t react.

“Do you know where we found this?”

“I put him behind the concrete,” the suspect says, and Subin bites hard on his lip, drawing blood.

_ Idiot.  _ It's the worst slip-up so far.

“That’s not where we found it,” Chan presses. He’s the direct opposite of Subin’s silent fatigue, getting more agitated with every non-answer, every slip up- and there’ve been many. It takes a lot for Chan to raise his voice, but Subin can hear he’s close. He should step in.

“The rest of the body was in the concrete,” Chan says. “This wasn’t- we found this ourselves, it had been overlooked. Can you tell me where it was?”

The suspect says nothing. Chan drops his head into his hands.

“A few hours before you confessed you tried to hire a third party to find the body for you,” Subin says. This is always his role- let Chan do the talking until he can’t anymore, when the frustration is overwhelming, and then finally speak up with the tougher questions. “Anything to say?”

Clearly not. Subin rolls his eyes.

“You realise how it looks, for someone to go seeking out a corpse. If you didn’t know where it was stowed, you didn’t do it, which means  _ someone else _ did.” The irony of this isn’t lost on him, trying to extract his own name as if the roles where reversed and he was on the other side of this table, but he’d taken one look at the suspect and realised this isn’t a cover up. There had been no recognition in the dead eyes looking back at him, no reverence. He doesn’t know the real killer's sitting right across the table from him, wearing a police badge. But if Subin asks the right questions, he can use the answers later, to spin a better web. Keep calling it a cover-up, find someone else to pin it on. So he asks, “The person you’re covering for- are they really worth life behind bars?”

But the man they’d arrested for Subin’s near-perfect crime is  _ such an unbelievable idiot-  _ “There’s no one else. I did it.”

Subin throws up his hands, something he’d saw Chan do countless times in tough interrogations like this one. “Then, what? You  _ forgot _ where you stowed the body? Is that it?”

The suspect shrugs.

_ You’re kidding. What kind of moron locked him up in the first place? _

“Then who told you where to find it again?”

No answer. 

Chan takes his head from his hands and sits back. “Explain it to me again,” he sighs. “Every second of it. What did you do on the 11th of March?”

“I’ve told you all this already.”

“Tell us again,” Chan bites.

“I waited for him to get home from work-”  _ wrong _ “-and he let me in. I drugged him and took him to the abandoned warehouses.”  _ Wrong. _ “There was a big tangle of wire in a computer block and I strangled him. Then I cut him up and hid the body behind a wall.”

Chan drops his chin to his chest, glazing sideways at his partner. Subin doesn't bother smothering his expression into something less wrathful. 

Obviously lies.  _ So obviously lies. He doesn’t know enough about the crime, his motive sounds fake, he doesn’t even talk like a killer! ‘A’ table, ‘a’ wire, ‘a’ wall, as if he was never there, and some idiot thought he was smart enough to do the things I did?  _ It’s more than insulting. 

Chan ends the questioning almost immediately after that. They haven’t gotten enough information, but it’s clear by now that the person who could give them the answers they want isn’t the man in cuffs.

They step into the break room. Chan looks around to see whether it’s empty, sees that it is, and hurtles the mug in his hand at the back wall. It shatters, portions of white china dropping with metallic thuds onto the sink below. He stares at the wreckage for a moment, then squeezes his eyes shut. Subin waits for him, resting against the sink at his side, watching his face, and when Chan opens his eyes again, he sees the sullen boy’s level expression, and sighs. “How are you still so calm?”

Subin’d been imagining every way he could kill the suspect since the first dumb answer had came out of his mouth.

“I’m past angry now,” he says, shaking his head. “Just incredulous. Whoever questioned him the first time around-”

“Should be fired,” Chan growls, “I know.” He sweeps a hand over his face, looking so much older than he had that morning. “He obviously didn’t do it.”

Subin scoffs. “That’s becoming increasingly clear.”

“You really think Seungwoo won’t tell us who the guy's covering for?”

_ Not unless I get on his bad side before this is over. _

Subin shakes his head. “He never gives names. Besides, I doubt even Seungwoo knows. He told us to re-investigate, but he didn’t point us in any particular direction.”

It takes a moment or two for Chan to nod. His eyes are staring at the sink again, but distantly, not seeing what’s in front of him anymore. “You’re right,” he admits. “He seemed just as in the dark as we are.”

_ One of us, anyway. _ But even as Subin thinks it, there’s no pleasure this time, in the secret, not like there usually is. He knows the killer at least, but he doesn’t know any more than Chan why this other ‘suspect’ had come forward, confessed to a crime he didn’t commit, who it was that had told him where to find the body when Seungwoo had refused. How much more do they know, and why hadn’t they come forward to the police? Subin doesn’t know any of the answers.

And then he gets home that night, and finds a letter on his doormat.

**

Date number two: the café this time isn’t as close to the city centre, further from the precinct and the surrounding office buildings, tucked between family-owned restaurants and dessert places, a near-rundown facade of dark wood and tinted glass windows. Though the day is grinding to a close, and the sun setting, the neon sign hanging above the door is off, broken most likely, but as a polite-looking figure approaches from the other side of the street, the tall boy lounging against the brick of the wall is unmistakable, from the violent plum of his spiked hair to his posture, right down to the arresting grin he gives the pedestrians passing him, and then looking back. The politer figure steps up to the café, and though he thinks he’s yet to be spotted, the reclining boy smiles and speaks before their eyes meet.

"Evening” Seungwoo drawls, and Seungsik adjusts the cuffs of a dull silver suit, worn around the elbows, self-consciously shuffling on his feet.

“Were you waiting long?”

Seungwoo laughs without answering. “Was it hard to find?”

“I’m not really familiar with this side of town,” Seungsik says, apologetic, though Seungwoo hardly seems to be listening as he steps into the café and turns to hold the door open.

“I’ll introduce you, then.”

Laughing more awkwardly, a hiccuping, breathy sound, Seungsik nods gratefully and follows him into the café, throwing a cursory glance around them as Seungwoo ushers him to the counter. It’s dim inside, the tinted windows and the late hour lit only with struggling yellow table lights, and the furnishings are eclectic and mismatched, rickety beachwood chairs beside red leather booths, square tables opposite circular ones, hexagonal ones inlaid with tile, and somehow the dimness of the light allows this not to be busy, but charmingly homey, like a pocket of space caught up in a prior decade with a strangely familiar atmosphere. Seungsik smells cinnamon and coffee, dark chocolate, all underlaid with a heady syrup sweetness, and dizzily lets himself be pushed to the till.

“What can I get for you?” a chirpy girl behind the counter asks.

Seungwoo’s been watching him intently since they’d stepped through the door- now, he waves a hand forward, inviting him to order. Seungsik rattles off his usual order.

“And a black coffee,” Seungwoo adds. He turns his back to the counter as the barista shuffles about, resting an elbow on the wooden surface, and tilts his head. “You’ve never been here before?”

“I don’t go out for coffee very much.”

Seungwoo’s smile pulls up at the edges- his eyes flicker across Seungsik’s suit, the frayed cuffs and worn down elbows and knees. “Uh-huh.”

The barista spins back to the counter with teacups in hand. “One flat white, one black coffee,” she announces, sliding them over to the counter atop china saucers. Seungsik fumbles in an inner pocket, but before his fingers close around his wallet, Seungwoo’s handing over a credit card.

“Oh, no, I can’t let you-”

“My treat,” Seungwoo insists, and he won’t accept any of Seungsik’s arguments. “Get a table,” he says, talking over him, and Seungsik finds himself stepping up to a little square table further into the café, away from the windows, against one photograph-covered wall. Seungwoo follows shortly after with the coffees, disappears again, and returns with two slices of coconut cakes dripping cream.

“You really didn’t need to do that,” Seungsik says immediately, and the purple-haired boy laughs, throwing his paint splattered jacket over the back of his chair.

Unabashedly, he asks, “Money’s tight?” 

Seungsik flushes pink. “It’s not as good as people think it is.”

Seungwoo hums levelly and stabs one slice of cake with a fork. Before he eats, he asks, “Do you enjoy what you do?” looking down at his plate, chewing slowly, seemingly uninterested in the answer he’ll receive.

Seungsik raises one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Enough to keep doing it.” The coffee’s hot, but he gulps a mouthful anyway. He doesn’t touch the cake. “What did you say you did again?”

Smiling, Seungwoo swallows, stabbing another cube of cake. He eats as if it’ll be his last meal, finishing every mouthful before moving onto another, almost not chewing at all, savouring every piece so. “I work in intelligence,” he says eventually, after the cube has been swallowed, too.

Seungsik blinks at him. “Intelligence? Like, for the government?” Seungwoo just smiles, and he lets out another breathy laugh. “Of course. You can’t tell me any more, can you?”

There’s a metallic clink as Seungwoo sets his cutlery down. He smirks, and reclines further into his seat, eyeing Seungsik in the same, unapologetically sharp manner he’d watched him when they’d first stepped into the cafe- slowly, too, as if he were another thing to savour. “Which is the lie?” he asks, as if merely wondering aloud, though the analytic edge to his gaze makes it clear his question isn’t rhetorical.

Seungsik frowns. “I’m sorry?”

“You said you’d never been here before,” Seungwoo smiles.

The frown deepens. There would be no reason to assume such an innocent thing were a lie. “You don’t believe me?” 

“Well I didn’t, but when you got us a table I spoke to the owner- that’s her, by the way-” he gestures back to the girl Seungsik had taken for a part-timer behind the counter “-and she told me she’s never saw you in here before.”

Seungsik’s eyes flicker to the girl wiping down a countertop, checking twice, though he needn’t bother. She’s a stranger, he’s certain of it. But there’s something going on behind that amused grin,  _ something _ he isn’t getting yet.

“So what’s the problem?” he asks, though he wonders whether he’ll ever receive a straight answer from the other boy.

“No problem,” Seungwoo laughs, spinning his teacup around in it’s saucer, “just a peculiarity.”

Exactly the kind of swerve, the kind of non-answer, Seungsik had been expecting. It’s infuriating, and he with a physical effort has to flatten his voice into levelness as he says, “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

Seungwoo smiles. “Putting it bluntly, I’m merely wondering why you haven’t replaced the suit.” He wags his finger to indicate the silver, worn material, his nose wrinkling.

Seungsik tries not to scoff. “I told you money’s-”

“But it’s not, is it?” The question is immediate, thought over, the analytical glint back with undeniable sharpness, and Seungwoo’s smile is more amused than ever. The debauched, easy facade of enjoyment fits him better than it has before- Seungsik believes it more, now. 

Seungwoo goes on: “Forgive me, Seungsik, but you don’t look like the type to be struggling. And someone who doesn’t even check the prices on the very visible menu of a cafe this bougie surely isn’t lacking in the financial department.” He laughs, eyeing the teacup Seungsik has started fiddling with. “ And you didn’t even order a black coffee.”

A move Seungsik is regretting now, and not just because he shouldn’t have been foolish enough to splurge on a coffee, but because the few sips he takes here of the coffee he  _ had  _ ordered, mistakenly, is by far not caffeinated enough for a trick like this. He smiles as he sets it back in its saucer, awkwardly catching the edge and almost tipping it upside down. 

“Maybe I just wanted to treat myself,” he says, bashful laughter turning his voice weakly breathy, though Seungwoo doesn’t react.

“How’d you get here?” he asks, without a beat.

Seungsik appears to flunder for a lie to cover his dignity, but then finds none, and under the sharp gaze, and not without a small degree of shame, admits, “I took the bus-”

Seungwoo doesn’t acknowledge the discomfort. “Which one?” he asks. “Where’d you get off?”

With a sigh, Seungsik falls back into his chair. “Is this really necessary-”

“Can you answer me?”

One corner of Seungsik’s mouth begins to upturn. He picks up his fork and draws a few lines in the icing of the untouched cake before him. Then- “No.”

A bubble of laughter comes from the purple-haired boy opposite him, who seems immensely satisfied by this answer, the truth, finally, that he’d been working at. “Didn’t think so. Because if you didn’t lie about not coming here before, then you wouldn’t know the pricing, which means those  _ money troubles _ really must not be as terrible as you’d have people believe. ”

Seungsik can’t deny that he’s enjoying this more than he thought he would, too. At first, when they’d met, he’d seen the flouncing, smirking boy as nothing more than a smug peacock, reared on money and now oozing it with every word, every grin, the kind of client his colleagues would kill for because if he couldn’t bribe the jury, he'd make sure to charm them some other way. He’d thought the pull he’d felt was that natural charisma, the work of money and maybe a little inherent brilliance too, with people if not with figures, because surely the boy opposite him has never worked a day in his life. But perhaps the sudden mechanical glimpses, the flickers of something more than base curiosity that had gleamed every now and then- perhaps they’re more real than the devil-may-care attitude they hide behind.

Seungsik’s smiling fully, when he asks, “What difference does it make if I lied? You think it would be wise for me to flaunt my money in front of a man I hardly know?”

“No,” Seungwoo admits with a laugh, “I’m just left wondering whether that’s all you’re hiding.”

“What else would I have to lie about?”

Seungwoo shrugs. “Beats me, but there’s something.”

Seungsik raises a brow. “You’re sure?”

“Forgive me,” Seungwoo grins, not at all apologetic, “you just don’t seem very trustworthy.”

Seungsik scoffs. “The only things I know about you are that you won’t tell me what you do for a living and you’re acquainted with detectives from the homicide department, but suddenly because of one worn-out suit,  _ I’m  _ the untrustworthy one?”

“It really is an eyesore,” Seungwoo says, grimacing, “but it’s not just the suit, it’s the scuffed shoes, and the cracked watch, and the  _ buses,  _ and entire demeanour you have going on-”

"I don't need a new suit. Or a new watch."

It has no business making him sad, but it does- for some inexplicable reason, Seungwoo suddenly wants to scream. He swallows it, covers it with a grin. Doesn't think of himself, what he used to be, as he says, "But surely you _want_ them. The Cinderella act doesn't suit you, Seungsik, it really doesn't. All _need_ this, and _need_ that. Isn't it enough to _want_ things, and let yourself want them? One shiny new thing wouldn't blow your cover."

Seungsik just rolls his eyes. “How’d you know the detectives?”

His sudden bluntness is answered in kind. In retaliation, Seungwoo asks what’s really been on his mind: “Why’d you lose so many cases?”

Seungsik splutters a laugh. “As if I have a choice?”

“Your success rate is so bad, it _is_ almost as if you lose them on purpose.”

Eyes are cast exasperatedly up to the ceiling, a reaction Seungwoo had long since grown used to. Seungsik’s voice leaves on a sigh as he says, “What possible reason would I have for doing that?”

He hadn't entirely been certain, just following an instinct, as usual, but now he's more sure. Seungsik might be smart enough to act the bumbling fool nice enough to be charming, but he's not quite taught himself shame. No blush, no embarrassment, even when his horrifying wreckage of a career is brought up on a date, with no tact whatsoever, slandered by a stranger.

“I don’t expect you to tell me," Seungwoo says. "But we’ve already established that the whole impoverished facade _is_ just a facade, and a lawyer with such an unbelievably terrible track record should have long ago been fired, but somehow finds himself sitting across from me in a cafe outside the city with a hefty wallet and a job.”

“We’re talking about my wallet, now?” When there’s no response, Seungsik huffs and reaches into a pocket, turning out the purse he finds inside his jacket and showing off the barren compartments within. “Practically empty, see?”

Seungwoo’s unperturbed. “Not that one. The tartan thing you had last time.”

“ _ Last time?”  _ Seungsik repeats.

The other boy chews a forkful of cake slowly before he admits, “I might have picked your pocket.”

Seungsik spends a few silent seconds considering his expression, decides that this is most likely true, and lets out a startled, almost impressed laugh. In the cafe, when the detectives had saw them together. He'd had it then. “Hardly first date manners,” he jokes.

“Very sorry-” Seungwoo flattens a hand over his heart with mock sincerity. “Should I have waited until the second?”

Seungsik rolls his eyes. He stabs Seungwoo’s cake with his fork, helping himself to a mouthful, pushing his own plate aside.

“And  _ now,”  _ Seungwoo goes on, watching him with a smile, _ “ _ the question becomes- why would you carry so much more cash beside a police precinct?”

“Maybe I thought I would be less likely to be robbed,” Seungsik mutters around his mouthful, throwing Seungwoo a meaningful, wry glance.

“Or in case you need to bribe someone,” Seungwoo suggests. He doesn’t look at Seungsik’s expression, knowing even if it were the truth, he’d find no indication of it in the other boy’s face. For someone pretending ignorance, the first thing Seungwoo had noticed about Seungsik was the stony, expressionless set of his features when he’d thought no one was looking. He's been around people with secrets for so long, he can sense them everywhere. “If you do, by the way- need to bride someone, that is- then Detective Heo’s my favourite,” he adds, with a wink. 

“You shouldn’t tell me that,” Seungsik says, picking up his teacup.

“Because the two of you are working together now?”

Seungsik smiles into his coffee, not looking up. “Because I get very jealous.”

Seungwoo’s watchful eyes flicker between his. Slowly, he drops back into his chair, a grin just as slowly growing ear-to-ear. “ _ Now _ we’re having fun.” 

“I carried more cash because I didn’t expect someone to be so annoyed by the ‘impoverished facade,’ as you nicely put it, that they’d actually rob me.”

Seungwoo snorts. “It doesn’t take much for me to pick a pocket."

“And what would your superiors think of that?”

_ Oh, this lie is really starting to suit him _ . “I have no superiors,” Seungwoo says, imagining himself as he might have liked when he was younger, a spy at the head of his division, taking orders from no one, something like that.

Seungsik’s image of this must be more practical; his brows rise to his hairline. Whether he’s impressed or just playing at impressed and doesn’t believe him, Seungwoo doesn’t know. “I see,” he laughs, taking another chunk out of Seungwoo’s cake. “It’s becoming more apparent why I like you.”

“Careful,” Seungwoo warns him. “I’m supposed to think of you as a helpless nobody in a bad suit, remember?”

The mugs are empty, the cakes are crumbs. Seungsik languidly spins his teacup around in its saucer, making a soft grating noise against the china. “What do you think of me now?”

For someone so outlandish, Seungwoo doesn’t take to people very easily. He has a few people he trusts, a few more that he has interest in, and  _ doesn't  _ trust- Subin being one of the latter, irritatingly- but other than them, he dislikes people, something he’d learned about himself along the way, with every new client and request. So it’s surprising even to himself, that he’s held a conversation this long, gotten no definite answers, and still has no thoughts of being elsewhere. A realisation: he’s enjoying himself. It’s about the same time as this thought strikes him that Subin’s eyes begin to peruse the letter left on his doormat, and the brothers are feeling entirely different things in the same moment, though their heads are both, as always, full of secrets. 

“I’m thinking,” he muses, “there’s a reason you don’t want people knowing how smart you actually are. That if you showed off your money and dropped the whole bumbling act, they’d wonder how someone so clever could be such a terrible lawyer and yet has such good pay, and you don’t want them looking into that.”

“And?” Seungsik pushes.

“And it’s intriguing."

The lawyer gives him a tight-lipped grin. “What if I’m one of the bad guys?”

“Are you?” Seungwoo asks, but of course, he doesn’t get an answer, just continues to smile. He does a lot of that, when he’s not hiding. Seungwoo shrugs. “I’m not all that good myself.”

Seungsik laughs at him, fond and airy. “I don’t know about that.”

Seungwoo glances into his empty teacup. “You’d be surprised.” He can feel Seungsik eyeing him more seriously, the journey his gaze maps across his face, and doesn’t want to look up. But there’s another reason Seungwoo’s here than to enjoy the coffee and the company, and for it to work, he needs to put in the effort, so he drags his eyes away from his cup, forces himself to return Seungsik’s curious gaze, and gives him a smile. After a beat, Seungsik returns it.


	12. Dead End Downpour

It had taken all of his fraying composure to wait until nightfall, and even then he had locked himself in his room away from Sejun’s worried questions, even then he hadn’t so much as given a halfhearted excuse as he slammed his door in his flatmate's face. He’s usually so careful, but now when the light of the moon has been hidden behind heavy clouds, and rain has started falling in almost perfect sheets of water down on the darkened streets, he can’t keep up the usual charade, the usual slow gait and blank expression. He hadn’t bothered to wear a jacket that might protect him from the rain, and as he thunders down the streets, scowling as darkly as he ever has, the rain plasters his hair to his forehead, runs down his cheeks in rivers, and he doesn’t feel the cold for the fire that’s lit in him.

He at the last moment reminds himself that despite the state he’s in, just walking up to his brother’s front door is too much of a slip-up to justify, so he swerves into a dark alley a few blocks before, taking the usual winding, pitch path to the back of his brother’s apartment complex. He’s grateful for his memory, how the way is easy to remember despite how infrequently he has need of it, because his anger is blinding. He doesn’t pay attention to the alleys, the shadows that linger heavy in their corners, doesn’t differentiate one from the next or retrace the route in his mind as he might do on any other night. He walks, and he doesn’t notice how heavy his footfall comes down against the brick, how loud it echoes, tastes rainwater on his lips and ignores that too. The only thing that manages to catch his attention, when he reaches the rotting fire escape that takes him directly to his brother’s balcony, is the sounds of terror coming from the other end of the alley. It’s a dead end, he knows, and he can see nothing for a moment as he stops, the sounds of fear ringing in his ears, the only thing to cut through his rage, and then he sees the moving shadow at his feet, and a pair of glowing yellow eyes. It’s a cat, but, as Subin strains his eyes against the darkness, the trembling sound is very human. 

“Hello?” he says into the darkness. The whimpering sound stops, and then a muffled breath sounds from the same direction. Subin takes another step forward and a cloud clears the moon- light shines on the scene, just enough to reveal another boy cowering on top of a dumpster, a hand clamped over his mouth. His already wide eyes widen at the sight of Subin standing a few paces away, a pale ghoul against the darkness, soaked with rainwater but a fire undoused in his eyes. That look, in the cowering boy’s eyes. It’s a familiar one. Usually that gleam would cut through a bored monotony, though now it's proving just as effective at cutting through layers of fury.

Subin bends and scoops up the furry, dirty thing that’d been cording itself around his leg and straightens. The cat seems quite happy in his arms, though his fingers are tight around it. A dumb house cat, he thinks, and a spoiled one. It hasn’t been taught fear.

“This alley's a dead end. You’ve backed yourself against a wall, I’m afraid,” Subin says, as the other boy takes the hand from his mouth, eyeing him warily. “If you want past it, you’ll have to go out the way you came.” He tips his head back toward the mouth of the alley behind him, and the boy nods. With difficulty, slipping once in the rainwater and almost falling, he manages to crawl back down to the ground, and Subin realises he knows his face.

“Hanse, isn’t it?” The change in the other boy’s face is enough of an answer. “What might a private detective be doing hiding in an alleyway so late at night? Interesting case?”

Hanse shakes his head. He has drawn the hood of his jacket up against the rain, and is unharmed, if unnaturally pale and shivering, and there’s something strange about his hair, though in the dimness and under the hood Subin can only guess what it is that might disrupt the darkness, like there are two colours striped there. Different from the photograph.

“Meeting a friend,” he mumbles.

He doesn’t ask how Subin knows his name, which could mean one of two things- one, his job is full of interesting characters like himself and his _friend_ who know more than they should at every possible moment, and he’s more than used to being known before he knows, or two, that he’s closer to Seungwoo than Subin had supposed through the few times he’d been mentioned, and this just got a whole lot more complicated. Subin doesn't like being known.

He smiles, close lipped, the way Chan always coos at, letting it crinkle the corners of his eyes as if it were sincere. “I wonder if it’s a mutual one.” His eyes stray up the fire-escape, and Hanse watches him in a way that’s enough of an answer. Subin tips his chin to the back door. “Is he home?” But Hanse just shakes his head, and he’s left to ask, instead, biting down on his impatience, “Do you know where he is?”

“He’s difficult to keep tabs on,” Hanse says, shrugging. Subin tries not to scoff. _You have no idea._

Maybe he could have fun while he waits.

Maybe Hanse has no idea who he is.

Maybe the alley’s dark enough.

The letter burns a whole in his pocket.

 _No_.

One problem at a time.

Subin drops the cat without warning, without gentleness. Hanse’s breath catches in a gasp, and he dives away, but the cat slinks past Subin and out of the alleyway, so there’s nothing fun to watch, just Hanse slowly regaining his composure and the rain continuing to pour like a monsoon. The rage seethes at the back of his mind. He doesn’t bother making any excuses as he walks closer to the back of the building and searches in the dark for the fire escape, hoisting himself up one balcony, then the next, then the next. 

Hanse surprises him by yelling up to him from the alley. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait?”

“I have a key,” Subin lies, smiling tightly down for a moment before turning back to the door. 

**

Seungwoo steps into a dark apartment a few hours later and has a gun aimed at the shadowy figure lounging on his couch before he realises the silhouette is awfully familiar, and flicks on the light overhead.

“Creepy bastard,” he sighs, as Subin curls his fingers in a wave, “how did you even know I moved?”

“Where’ve you been?”

Irritated that another one of his questions have been avoided, Seungwoo tucks the gun away into his jacket, taking the paint-splattered thing off and draping it over the back of a blue velvet armchair that he hovers behind. “Out.”

Subin replies by setting something down on his coffee table.

“What is it?” Seungwoo says, without moving.

“A letter I found on my doorstep today.”

Their history is too deep for this kind of play. Seungwoo knows exactly what it means if his brother’s smoky voice is this level, this calm, if it’s devoid of all usual dryness and darkness. His voice is always so calm when the rest of him’s a storm- even now, there’s a puddle around his shoes, and his hair is curled away from his forehead in a way that makes it so obvious he’d been soaked through to the bone to get here, which means he was in a hurry. Hurrying is not something either brother does very often. They both like to take their time.

“Do I want to know?” Seungwoo sighs, but even as he asks it, he’s stepping closer and snatching the letter up. Whatever the problem is it’s a big one, for Subin to come directly to him, and there’s no possible way he’s getting out of it.

He reads quickly, eyes darting over typewriter-ink without emotion. Then he sets the letter down again, and curses.

“Why did you tell us to reopen the case?” Subin says quietly. His eyes don’t leave the letter.

Seungwoo moves back behind the armchair. His hand rests upon the top of his jacket, lightly.

“I knew they got the wrong guy too easily,” he says. It’s the truth, though Subin of course is too suspicious of everything now to realise that- his eyes have narrowed.

“You didn’t know about this?” he asks.

Seungwoo fights against a wash of fear that’s disguising itself as irritation. “If I knew, I wouldn't have told you to reopen the investigating, would I?”

His voice had had an edge, an uncharacteristic sharpness, and the sound of it at last drags Subin’s eyes up from the letter, right into his own.

“Would you?” Subin asks.

Seungwoo sighs, sincerely irritated now, more with himself than his brother, because they both know the answer he _should_ be giving, and Subin seems to think too highly of him, asking too often whether his loyalty has held. Seungwoo wishes, just once, that he’s right to be doubtful, but he’s already saying, “I don’t want you caught for this, Bin.”

Subin’s narrowed eyes are, thoughtful, not quite angry. “I don’t think I believe you.”

“I knew you did it,” Seungwoo points out, shrugging. “I didn’t tell anyone that.”

“Then _someone else_ knows it was me. This letter was sent straight to my address.” His eyes drop to the letter again, and a breathy, dry laugh scrapes up his throat. “I don’t know why someone smart enough to find me would think I had that much money tucked away,” he muses.

“They don’t,” Seungwoo sighs. Subin raises a brow. “That’s not your money they're asking for, it’s mine. That figure-” he points to the letter “-it’s the sum of a savings account I opened last year. Down to the penny. All of it.”

Subin’s well-versed in keeping surprise from his face when he needs to, but here in Seungwoo’s dark apartment, a slither of it shines through. “So they know about you, too.”

For his part, Seungwoo is less shocked. “Seems like it.”

“And they think you’ll cover for me.”

“The money isn’t a problem, Subin.”

Subin scoffs, already aware, eyes lingering on the letter. Years have taught Seungwoo how to differentiate his brother’s silences, to tell one breed from another, and the one that falls now as Subin stares down at the letter raises all the hairs at the back of his neck.

“I’ll ask again,” his brother says, his tone making it very clear that it will be the last time. “Where were you? I waited.”

Seungwoo crosses his arms, though it’s more of a gesture of self-preservation, steeling his nerves, than anything else. “I was with someone.”

“The lawyer,” Subin says, not a question.

There’s no point denying it. His brother hates lies.

“Yes.”

A round of questioning, immediately. Subin sits back and asks, “Why?”

This is faster than he wanted things to go. Ideally, there would be more time to do the work on his own, to build more of a case, before involving Subin, but it’ll have to be now. There’s no easy way to say no to Subin when he wants something.

So Seungwoo gives in, takes the safer option. “I think he has something to hide,” he admits.

Subin taps the letter. “This?”

“I-I don’t know. I was looking into the suspect they caught for this, saw his lawyers photograph, recognised the name _Seungsik_ from precinct gossip. It was just a whim, but when I looked into it I saw his record, and most of his clients plead guilty and get the worst sentences they could in their position-”

“So he’s terrible at his job,” Subin shrugs, glowering. “Not clever enough for this.” But he doesn’t sound as certain as before. _Whim_ is a valuable word, from Seungwoo’s lips.

“He’s kept the same position for years,” Seungwoo says, and now he’s conscious of a change in his own voice too, that as he speaks faster, colder, that this is one of those terrible moments that the two of them seem similar. “If he lost his cases on purpose, if he _tried_ to get his clients put away for a long time for crimes they didn’t commit, it might explain how he's held onto his job for so long. What if he still has that job because he’s the best, and only _looks_ like the worst from the outside?”

“He loses his cases on purpose so the wrong person is behind bars," Subin summarises, all but rolling his eyes. "Where’s the benefit?”

Seungwoo’s pacing now, unable to keep still, back and forth in front of the couch as if he’s forgotten who’s sitting on it, watching him, and his hands draw paths in the air as talks. “Knowing he’s the only person who knows who the real killer is. Knowing that if he wanted to-to bribe, or blackmail the real guilty party, he’d be in the best place to do so. He finds someone with nothing to lose, lets them take the fall-”

“And now a letter,” Subin says, still watching him prowl, “asking for a sum I can’t give them, in exchange for silence. He doesn't tell anyone about me, the guy he ensured took the fall is given some clever spew about _good behaviour_ and getting out early, and a promise to split the money.”

“I don’t know if it’s really him," Seungwoo says hastily. "Even if he has something to do with it, it could be rooted higher up in the company-”

Subin looks back at him, impassive. “You’re trying to protect him.”

His throat is dry as Seungwoo swallows. “Yes.” 

A flicker of amusement passes over Subin's glower. “I can’t harm him anyway. It’s too risky now we're working together.”

It doesn’t make Seungwoo feel any better. _Trustworthy_ is just as ill-fitting as _reasonable_ when it comes to describing his brother. But he pushes past it, because he’s sure that at least Subin himself believes the reassurance, and nothing good will come of questioning it.

“Then what _can_ you do?” he asks instead. “Trace the letter?”

Subin scoffs. “Of course not. Everything I’d need for that belongs to the precinct and could be traced back to me. There’s no way I could explain the letter without admitting guilt.”

“And you can’t denounce the suspect they locked away wrongly without evidence of the real killer," Seungwoo adds. "You.”

“It’s a clever trick," Subin admits, a dark laugh coloring his voice. "Practised. They’ve done this before.” He taps a few notes of sound onto the letter, paper rustling under his fingertips. “If it is that lawyer-”

“Give me some more time," Seungwoo says. "I’m working on it.”

“Is _working_ really what you’re doing?”

A muscle jumps in Seungwoo's jaw. “I was the one that found him, wasn't I?”

Subin shakes his head. “You’re not going to get him to admit it, even if it _is_ him.”

That, at least, is something Seungwoo is glad to hear. Being told he can't do something has always been his best motivator. He feels better about this already.

“Leave that for me to worry about," he says. "If time runs out, you can just pin the murder on someone else, can’t you?”

“As a last resort,” Subin shrugs. He doesn't seem happy about it, but Seungwoo knows his brother enough to know it isn't his good conscience coming out, not the guilt he'd feel over setting someone up. He knows how angry Subin had been when someone else had been locked away for his crime, as if someone had taken all of his credit away.

Subin stares at the letter for a long time, and then snatches it up, and tucks it away into an inner pocket. "So we have a week to work with," he sighs. "Though I doubt this will be resolved by then. I don’t trust whoever it is enough to be silenced, even with such a sum.”

“My thoughts exactly. And it is _my_ money they’re after.” There’s not much conviction to it. Both of them already know he’s not the one making the decisions here. Both know what he’d give up.

With an exhasperated shake of his head, Subin stands, the puddle at his feet soaking further into the floor as he disrupts it. “So it’s him, or it’s his employer, or it’s someone entirely different and you’ve been wasting all of your time shadowing an idiot.”

“He’s not an idiot.”

Subin’s grin is mean, all sharp edges. “Did the two of you have fun?” he asks, his ashy voice rougher as he talks low, stressing every syllable. “Was he a good enough _distraction_?”

Seungwoo rolls his eyes. “Yes, Subin, I enjoy his company, and even that is surely enough of a hint that there’s something wrong with him.”

This gets no reaction, though Seungwoo hadn’t been joking- really, he thinks it’s convincing. It’s one of the reasons he’s still following this hunch. One reason amongst many.

“We have a week,” Subin reminds him, stepping away from the sofa. “Whoever they are, they don’t want to give us enough time to find them before the deadline.”

“It might be possible.” _Might be._ Subin looks ready to argue, so he shrugs and adds, “It’s my money anyway.”

Subin quirks a brow. “Your neck, too, if this goes badly.”

 _He wouldn’t_ , Seungwoo think. Even as he thinks it, he knows it’s probably not true.

Subin leaves soon after that, down the fire escape again in the pouring rain. Seungwoo stands still for a very long time, staring at the spot he’d been on the sofa, and then he finds an old file to set aflame and pours himself a strong drink.


	13. Little Secrets

Unsurprisingly, Subin gets to the precinct the next day to find Seungwoo sprawled over the top of Byungchan’s computer, mid-way through a story that’s turning the receptionist’s ears bright crimson.

“And then _he_ said to _me-_ ”

“Who just lets you wander in here?” Subin sighs, stopping by the receptionist’s desk, glaring at the back of his brother’s head. “You realise this is the easiest place for you to get arrested, right?”

Seungwoo laughs and turns to grin at him. “And what for, officer?”

“Trespassing or obstruction of justice,” another voice says, and Subin glances up to see Chan behind the desk, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed. “I’m still making my mind up.”

Subin gives his partner an unimpressed glare that just makes Chan scrunch up his nose, and juts his chin toward his brother. “How long has he been here?”

Chan just shrugs in answer, as if he’d lost track of time, and Byungchan throws a wary glance up at Subin hovering by his desk and tugs his shirt collar away from his neck. “A while,” he says quietly, and steadfastly ignores the way Seungwoo leans even further over the top of his computer to grin at him.

“And you just let him torment Byungchan?” Subin asks his partner.

Chan chuckles, unfolding his arms. “What, like that doesn’t sound like me?”

“I have pepper spray in my bag, you know,” the receptionist says, not looking away from his screen, and Chan grins, because it’s clear who he’s talking to, and it’s not Seungwoo. “And a taser.”

Seungwoo gives a twinkling laugh and runs a hand through slicked-back violet hair. “You're more fun than the last receptionist.”

Subin rolls his eyes, ending the gesture with another glare Seungwoo’s way. “Don’t you have something else you should be doing?”

The sharp grin is innocently turned his way, flashing like a knife-edge under the fluorescents. “Not right now.” 

Subin glances at the other detective as Chan laughs. 

Seungwoo looks pleased, standing here wasting time, knowing all about the danger both of them are in and that promise of _working on it_ seeming like a distant memory already, and Subin is only aware of a dull flicker of his own irritation before he finds himself saying, “I bumped into one of your friends last night.”

He supposes this is the reaction his anger wanted- Seungwoo, caught off guard, eyes wide, head turning lightning-fast to stare at him, already beginning to turn over every possible explanation for the slip-up in his mind. But Subin had just wanted to shock him, to give one of his little secrets away now it seems like everyone who shouldn’t know his own.

Chan coughs a laugh. “Friend?”

“Yeah,” Seungwoo says, though his eyes still linger on Subin’s face. “He told me you spooked him.”

Subin ignores the subtle warning and raises a brow at Chan. “You know that private investigator you were trying to get a hold of last year?”

The older boy’s mouth drops open, gaze flickering incredulously to Seungwoo. “ _You knew him the entire time?”_

The informant shrugs. “I don’t give identities.”

“But you said he was a friend.”

Seungwoo snorts, fully recovered. “I think it was your partner who used that word,” he says, tipping his chin to Subin in the same way the detective had, a conscious mimicry to annoy him- or a subconscious family habit Subin should be more careful of. 

“Hanse wouldn’t tell me I was about to be stabbed if he saw someone pull a knife on me,” Seungwoo’s saying derisively, and Chan’s eyes widen and then narrow, as if he’s caught between surprise and suspicion and can’t decide which one to go for. Seungwoo shrugs again. “That hasn’t actually happened, surprisingly.”

“You’re right,” Chan nods, “that is surprising.”

Byungchan, forgotten in the middle of them, curses suddenly and whacks the computer’s side, making Seungwoo jolt in surprise, then laugh, as Byunchan blushes red under all of their startled stares.

“Some of us have work to do, you know,” the receptionist says, still quiet, though this time he turns to glare at Chan purposefully.

“D’you ever actually do that kind of thing?”

Subin hits the back of his partner’s head, not lightly. “Like you can talk,” he grumbles. Then he stands straighter, and glares at them all in turn, feeling a trickle of appreciation for how they all seem to be listening closer. “Fun’s over,” he tells them, “we all have things we should be doing.”

It isn’t surprising when Chan sighs and shuffles back to his desk, or Byungchan flushes again and scurries to grab a pile of abandoned reports, nor is it surprising that the only person who doesn’t move is Seungwoo, arms crossed, looking down at his brother as if he has no intentions of doing as he says.

Glowering fiercer than before, Subin leans a little closer to his brother’s side, voice low. “Get to work, Seungwoo.”

The implication is clear in the dangerous glint of his eyes. Every chance Subin gets, he’ll drop another little secret for all to hear, punishment for every second that ticks down toward their deadline that Seungwoo isn’t pulling his weight, keeping his promise. It’s only for a moment, that Seungwoo wonders how many of his secrets his brother really knows. It’d be too many, in any case. Too many to be set at Chan’s fingertips. He wouldn’t look good. He’d be hard to catch for anything even if Subin _did_ say something more pointed, has always and always will be hard to catch, but he doubts it would matter very much. Unlike his brother, there are things he fears more than bars on his windows.

He leaves the precinct in a foul mood. He can feel eyes following him, notices people giving him a wide berth as he passes, and knows he’s glaring, but he has no plan in mind and nowhere to go, so he lingers on the streets, feeling slightly better to be surrounded by people who _do_ have plans, killing precious time. 

He’s worried.

It’s not something he usually is.

Seungsik hasn’t accepted any of his calls, and his texts have been read but not replied to. It isn’t like him. Even before yesterday, when Seungwoo feels like he’d glimpsed more of the real Seungsik under his ‘pitiful’ facade, he’d replied to every text, little nothings that might as well have not been sent, just reassurances that he wasn’t being ignored, because that was the kind of person Seungsik was pretending to be. Subservient, passive. Fumblingly polite in a way just shy of endearing. Maybe the radio silence is just more truthful, and he’ll have to try harder now to keep Seungsik’s attention. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like avoidance. Which is very, very unfortunate, now all of their chances seem to hang upon Seungwoo winning him over before the end of the deadline. He’s certainly charming, but he doubts even he can achieve this without actually _meeting_ again, and so far Seungsik isn’t giving him any chance of that happening soon.

He doesn’t want to give up that money. It had been a substantial amount even to him, sure, but it wouldn’t take long for him to earn it back, if he tried. The sum isn't the problem. The ‘trying’ part is the problem. He doesn’t want to try anymore. That money had started as a joke at first, his _early retirement_ fund just a little secret that made him chuckle to think about, but it had grown faster than he’d thought it would. In the end, he’d stopped pretending it was a joke. He would be able to burn all of his files, drop his contacts. Find another flat somewhere, further away from the precinct. No more phone calls, or showing up places he shouldn’t be, or bribes or blackmail or shady clients even _he_ says no to. He could live like a king on that money, if he wanted to. But he wouldn’t have to. He could do anything. Nothing. 

And if the deadline runs out, it will all be gone. Freedom is slipping through his fingertips.

He needs a plan. Or a miracle. But he’s betting on the former.

Coffee first. He gets his best ideas after the third coffee of the day, he likes to think, and he’d only managed to down two generous mugs at home before strutting into the precinct, and it feels like he’s burned it all up already. Sejun’s behind the counter when he gets there, but no one else of interest stands out in the sea of familiar faces. The usual patrons, the usual staff, including the new one he’d managed to turn into a human-shaped tomato last time they spoke. He avoids him today. Too tired. Coffee.

Sejun’s just thanking a customer as he waltzes in the door, and his eyes find him immediately.

“Oh,” he says, as if unable to bite back his surprise. “Didn’t think we’d see you today.”

Subin and Chan must not have been here. That’s good. Sejun had spotted him following them around faster than Seungwoo had expected anyway, so maybe it’s time to switch up his schedule a little.

“Maybe I’m getting fond of you,” he says, fingertips tapping along the counter as he walks. Sejun shakes his head, but doesn’t rise to it, and Seungwoo gives his order without glancing at the other employee he can feel watching him.

“ _Four shots of espresso_ ?” Sejun repeats, wide eyed. Seungwoo can see why someone would like him- even as he’s incredulous, there’s a friendliness just tugging the corner of his lips up, all easy smiles and goodness. He can’t see why _Subin_ of all people would like him, though. It seems like a sick kind of joke.

“Rough day,” he laughs, resting a little on the counter.

Sejun, confused, glances down at his watch, as if he thinks he might just have let the time slip by unnoticed, but finds he’s right- it’s not even noon. 

“Wow,” he says, appraising Seungwoo leaning toward him with even more warm sympathy than before. He sets the coffee down on the counter, no more comments about the ungodly amounts of caffeine that’s in it, and then slides up to the glass doors of a display case. “D’you like donuts?”

Seungwoo raises a brow. “Does anyone ever actually say no to that?”

Sejun giggles, a surprisingly loud, high sound. “Good point,” he says, pointing a pair of tongs at Seungwoo in acknowledgement, and then he packs up a white cardboard box of four beautiful marbled-blue donuts, glazed to perfection, and slides the box up beside the coffee. “Those’re on me.”

Seungwoo waves a hand through the air. “Oh, I couldn’t-”

“You could, and you will,” Sejun laughs, plucking Seungwoo’s card from between his fingers and turning around to the cash machine. “You look like you need them.”

Seungwoo stares at him, the loose knot in his apron, the light, fading blue of his hair. He’s not proud of it, but he’d looked into the boy moving into Subin’s flat before this brother even officially met him, just to be safe. ‘Ex-security guard’ was something he’d been wary of, until he’d met Sejun too, and saw the flour in his hair, and the aprons, and his easy smiles. 

Subin had been furious when he found out, more furious than Seungwoo had expected him to be, and he hadn’t looked into anything else. It still feels like he knows Sejun, though, even if the only moments they meet are ones like these, cut short by other people waiting in line, or Subin’s glowering whenever he spots them together. 

Sejun beams at him, when he turns back around, and Seungwoo ridiculously finds himself wondering whether the younger boy remembers him with any real warmth. They joke around as if they might be friends, but Seungwoo thinks there could be a little wariness behind every smile, a little too much truth in Sejun’s jokes about him being trouble. Subin’s probably told him to stay away.

Seungwoo picks up his coffee, and all he can think about is whether it’s really an advantage to be on Subin’s good side. There are so many things he could tell Sejun now that could change his mind about his flatmate.

Should he?

Almost definitely. But will he ever be able to do something like that to his brother, even if he wanted to? Seungwoo doesn't think there's that much goodness left in him.

“Thank you,” he manages to choke out, though the little white box feels like betrayal, and in that moment he’d rather do anything than accept it. He hesitates, as Sejun hands him back his card, lingering just noticeably at the counter when he should be saying a polite goodbye, and the younger boy smiles up at him softly. But there’s no way to say anything Seungwoo really wants to say, no way to convey the apologies and the warnings and the thanks he wants to give as if they were still near-strangers. Sejun doesn’t know him. 

He accepts the donut box with a smile and walks out of the coffee shop without another word.


	14. Passing on Messages

“My client plead guilty, Detective, and the reopening of this case has not changed that. There was an admission of guilt-”

“He doesn’t even know what the murder weapon is!” Chan cries, and Seungsik’s half-nervous reasoning is cut off, the lawyer’s mouth snapping closed in shock. “He has got to be the  _ worst _ murderer in the history of all bad murders if he expects us to believe he just  _ forgot _ where the rest of the body was.”

Seungsik starts to shake his head. “The cadaver-”

“Was only  _ in part _ where he knew it would be,” Chan insists. “The eye. He had no idea where we found it.”

For a moment, Seungsik looks as if he has nothing to say, and Subin’s eyes slide up from the conference room table to peer at his expression, but can only see a man out of his depth, and nothing more. 

Seungsik clears his throat and, lamely, tries: “A guilty plea is a guilty plea, all the same.” Chan groans, and drops his head into his hands, and Seungsik raises both hands, joined at the wrist, as if he were the one in handcuffs. “Unless you have any  _ inadmissible _ evidence that my client could not have committed the murder then his plea stands and you have no leads, and therefore no need to continue questioning him.”

“It’s not like he could tell us anything useful anyway,” Subin adds, eyeing Chan’s defeated posture. It’s the first time he’s spoken since they sat down, and both of them look at him, surprised, as if just remembering his presence.

Seungsik clears his throat too loudly in the quiet of the room. “Frankly, Detectives, I’m beginning to wonder what really prompted the case to reopen in the first place. Confessions are usually the end of it.”

The report had read  _ in light of new evidence _ . The only people in the precinct who know the real reason for the re-investigation are Chan, Subin and the Captain (who hadn’t taken it well when Chan had begged to follow a lead from the informant he’d been trying to chase away for so long.)

_ So, _ Subin thinks, blocking out whatever practised excuse Chan is spinning in favour of considering the lawyer sitting opposite them.  _ If it really is him, if he’s the one who sent the letter, he’ll know about the real reason, won’t he? Whoever had written to him had found out all about Seungwoo, too.  _ But Subin is far better at hiding things from other people than seeing things in them- if Seungsik is only pretending ignorance, he can’t tell. He still looks like the same stuttering, stupid lawyer Subin had always thought of him as.

The young Detective spins the pen in his hand around his fingers and tries to call up a calming image. His happy place isn’t the sound of waves on a beach, or an armchair in front of a fireplace in a woodland cabin; his is an open, dark street, bloated with rain, heat pooling around his fingers and the snap of bone echoing out across the blackness. He can play the memory of every pained gasp he’d ever caused in his mind exactly as they’d sounded, a few screams before he’d realised he was more for the quiet forms of torture, before he’d tried his hand at drugs and gags and found his favourite sounds where the ones he could keep to himself, can only hear in his closeness. He calls one cry up now, imagining the volume of it in the cavernous room around him. 

“ _ Detective Jung.” _

The pained gasp is very real, for a moment, as Subin is drawn out of his own head and finds himself holding onto a thin wrist, bones sharp under his fingers- Byungchan’s expression is tight with panic as the receptionist stands above him. 

Subin releases him instantly, and the older boy rubs at the redness of his skin with his other hand, breaths shocked shallow.

“Sorry,” Subin says, voice breathy, almost shaking. Byungchan might take it for stress. “You surprised me.”

“I- I guess I should have known not to sneak up on a Detective. Chan told me...you get like this-”

“What is it?”

Byungchan folds his hands in front of himself as he relays the message, as if trying to look as professional as possible despite the skittish stare he’s still giving Subin. “Chan said to tell you he was going back to see if he could find any more evidence you missed the first time.”

“At the warehouses?”

“I think so. He just left.”

“By himself?”

“Uh, yeah- is that bad?”

Subin sighs, one of the wheels screaming against tile as he pushes his chair back and stands. “No, it’s not  _ bad _ , Byunchan, it’s his job. I would have appreciated an invite before he goes and falls down an old elevator shaft and snaps his neck, is all.”

He can feel Byungchan wince as he brushes past him, out into the precinct again. Seungsik must be gone too- a cursory glance around shows him nowhere to be found- so Subin grabs his jacket from the back of his chair without a word, and rushes down the stairs. The car’s already gone, and Chan with it, and he stops when he’s out on the street. 

What should he be doing? Is this really a good way to spend his time when the deadline’s drawing ever nearer? Of course, he needs to keep up the facade of trying to catch the ‘real killer,’ but it’s not as if they’re ever  _ actually _ going to achieve that, and it feels now like he has bigger problems to solve. 

He wonders whether his brother’s sitting back on a sofa somewhere, drinking a coffee, flirting with a barista, buying another ridiculous flashy jacket from those overpriced boutiques Subin knows he loves so much. Subin should never have agreed to let him work this out. 

If he kills the lawyer, would it be traced back to him? Seungsik hardly seems like the sociable, popular type, so there would be a short list of suspects, just the people he’d met recently. Some of those people would surely be convicted felons, some even killers, but they could also be  _ behind bars, _ so again, the pool would narrow. And if the letters still continued to come after he was gone, what then? There would only be one more corpse someone could find and use against him.

“Shit,” Subin breathes, rough voice low enough to blow away in the breeze. Then he steps up to the sidewalk, and hails a cab.

Whilst his brother is on his way to the scene of his own crime for the second time that week, Seungwoo is just stepping out of a restroom. If anyone had noticed the stranger that had entered the building in a black bomber jacket and snapback pulled low over his eyes is now striding toward an escalator in a full three-piece suit, they don’t care enough to stop him. 

He straightens his spine and goes for  _ busy _ instead of  _ casual _ , throwing glances at the watch at his wrist- turned so the face is on on the inside, as if he were someone concerned about scratching the glass- and shuffling his feet until the escalator deposits him on the second floor.

_ Terrible security, _ he can’t help but think. All of the security team is on the first floor, and lazy or incompetent enough not to notice the boy who’d rushed in to use one of their bathroom stalls is now walking through corridors set with office doors. You’d think a building full of people who work with some of the worst criminals in the city might have more concern for break ins.

  1. _138\. 140. 142-_



Found it. Office number 143, second floor, silver plaque on the door reading _ Seungsik Kang, Esq. _ It looks new, like he’s just moved into the room, because he had- his office used to be little more than a broom cupboard on the ground floor. But one of his superiors managed to get himself hit by a bus two months ago, and Seungsik had quite literally  _ moved up _ in the world.

Seungwoo raps a knuckle on the door and waits for any sign of response. None. He’d almost expected a crumpled piece of paper with a cheery ‘ _ Out for lunch!’ _ taped to the wood, but it seems even Seungsik won’t go that far in the charade.

“Can I help you?”

Seungwoo spins on his heels to see a boy squinting up at him. It’s an intern, or an assistant, too young to be anything more than a coffee-runner, probably just out of college. He has his black hair gelled away from his face like someone from a black-and-white gangster flick, and a navy suit that’s pressed just nicely enough to cover up the fact that it’s just shy of looking expensive. But the dark eyes that study him behind wire frame glasses are quick, and Seungwoo immediately slides into a wide grin and folds his hands behind his back.

“I was just looking for someone,” he says, and the younger boy eyes the edges of his smile as Seungwoo’s eyes stay on his for a moment too long. Then he turns slightly back towards the door, and tips his head to the nameplate. “Any idea where he is?”

“I’m afraid not, Sir. And you might be…?”

Seungwoo chuckles and fiddles idly with his watch. “A friend.” He says the word flippantly, in the manner of someone who has lots and treats them like jackets he can try on and cast off whenever he wants, because he had looked into the restroom mirror and laughed at how he looked in a waistcoat and jacket, just another copy of all of the second sons who are so frequently his clientele, and he’d learned long ago that smiling like you always got what you want goes a long way to making that possible. 

He could just as easily have tried out for the part of  _ lawyer _ \- his work has certainly provided him with enough knowledge on the law to keep up a convincing charade- but he’s self aware enough to know it’d be more believable to be like this, just someone who might wander in anywhere and still belong, because they’d never been told that some things don’t belong to them. 

The younger boy looks as if he recognises this type, too, because he’s all politeness, hands folded in front of him, a smile never quite leaving his face.

“Well his work hours- wait, really?” Seungwoo raises a brow, and the surprise vanishes from the boy’s face, as he ducks his head, cheeks turning pink. “Forgive me, Sir, it’s not my place-”

“Doesn’t have many of them, does he? Friends?” He laughs as the boy looks up through his lashes, still shame-faced. “No need to look so put out. I’m more of an... _ acquaintance _ , anyway.”

Though it’s purposefully vague, the boy nods as if he understands, and offers, “I can pass on a message, if you’d like, Sir.”

_ I could get used to someone talking to me like this, _ Seungwoo thinks. People have a lot of names for him, but usually  _ sir _ isn’t one of them.

“No,” he laughs, shaking his head, “no need. Just- actually if you could pretend you never saw me, that’d be great.” He leans a little closer, conspiratorially, his voice softening at the edges, and is pleased to see the other boy not leaning away. “This was just a- a business call, of sorts, and it suits me  _ very  _ well if I just happened to miss my opportunity.”

The boy pushes his glasses a little further up his nose in what might be a nervous gesture. He’s frowning, but seems to be catching onto the idea that Seungwoo’s weaving, that he doesn’t actually  _ want  _ to bump into Seungsik. Based on Seungsik’s reputation, it doesn’t seem a large leap, to assume whatever poor soul ends up outside his door is just as unwilling to be there as anyone else.

“Might I ask what that opportunity is, Sir?” the younger boy asks.

Seungwoo, who’s properly enjoying himself now, allows the mystery to stretch a little longer, and smiles as his eyes trail over the boy’s face, then his suit, then his jacket. “You look like you’re fresh out of Grad school. Been to any networking events?”

“Can’t say that I have, Sir.”

Seungwoo sniffs haughtily, and sighs, “My parents are rather fond of them. They just seem to be lacking the good sense needed to work out who’s useful and who’s...” he replaces the word  _ useless _ with a glance at Seungsik’s door. He’d feel awful, if he actually believed there was any truth to the word.

The boy blinks, and then gives a breathy kind of laugh. “Ah. I see.” There’s less of the learned politeness in him now they’re sharing a joke at a superior’s expense, and he loosens his tie just slightly, as if it had been bothering him. “Well then, I suppose I could...keep this visit between ourselves, if you’d like, Sir.”

Seungwoo grins, eyes dropping to the carpet and back up again, flickering over the boy’s face. “I’d appreciate that,” he says quietly, and slides a hand from one of the boy’s shoulders to the top of his arm, tightening his grip just enough to be noticeable. The boy blinks up at him, not looking away, and Seungwoo knows he’s won as he takes his hand away and looks around the corridor.

“So,” he says casually, “have you got one of these offices to yourself?”


	15. New Angle

Seungwoo’s lying on a couch in his living room, the gramophone on the table a few inches from where his head rests on the armrest scratching at the end of a record. He has a headache, but he can barely feel the pain through the numbness. He’d worried, and he’d wandered, and he’d did a few other things that day, and then he’d crashed on his sofa and let the hours tick closer to midnight, a dark mood seeping all of the feeling out of him. It’s 11:57, when Seungsik’s message comes through.

**_S.K:_ **

**_There are cameras in my office, you know._ **

Seungwoo stares at it, eyes flickering up to all of the messages before it- all on his side of the conversation, all read and ignored. He throws his phone across the room. 

The gramophone needle gives one more squeal as he lifts it, forcing his movements into slowness as he slides the record back in its case, then slides the case back into its place in the cabinet, and then he steps into the kitchen, and turns the kettle on. The emerald tile below his feet looks black in the darkness, like he’s standing on empty air, but he doesn’t turn the light on. He brews his coffee strong, in the dark, and piles it with sugar. He doesn’t get enough sleep on the best of nights, and tonight isn’t one of those.

His phone screen is blank when he steps back into the sitting room. He’s pretty sure Subin cut a few wires last time he was waiting for him here, because the chandelier won’t light, and his Television had flickered between channels and static so irritatingly that he’d turned it off and just stared up at the ceiling instead- the table that holds the gramophone is a matching pair, though, bracketing the sofa, and on the other there’s a battery-powered desk lamp, one of many scattered around the apartment. They're safety measures, for the many times his brother had decided to remind him he knows all of his secrets. It’s been a while since Seungwoo had let himself really be afraid of the dark, but he taps the lamp stand and feels a little relief when a hazy orange floods the room, all the same. He drinks half of the coffee before he retrieves his phone.

**_Sorry, who is this?_ **

Seungsik doesn’t bother playing hard to get this time- he'd barely pressed 'send' before there’s another message lighting the screen of Seungwoo’s phone.

  
  


**_S.K:_ **

**_I know you saved my number_ **

**_Did you know about the cameras_ **

**_Cameras huh_ **

**_Thats unfortunate_ **

**_Really didnt have an awful lot of time for the office tour, must have missed them_ **

  
  


**_S.K:_ **

**_You’re unbelievable_ **

**_I’ll make it up to you_ **

**_Dinner on me_ **

  
  


**_S.K:_ **

**_Trying to buy my forgiveness?_ **

  
  


**_Just taking pity on the pauper_ **

**_Money’s been tight, no?_ **

  
  


**_S.K:_ **

**_I don’t think we should keep doing this_ **

  
  


**_You’re right, we should talk about this in person_ **

**_S.K:_ **

**_You know that’s not what I meant_ **

**_We should stop meeting_**

Seungwoo curses under his breath, rereading the message, rereading it again.

This isn’t how he expected this to go. He’d succeeded in annoying Seungsik enough to stop the radio silence, but had he gone too far?

**_Let me make it up to you_ **

**_I can be very persuasive when I want to be_ **

**_S.K:_ **

**_This isn’t about that_ **

**_I can’t meet you anymore._**

**_I don’t get to know why?_ **

But the message is read, and no reply comes.

So Seungwoo had been right. Seungsik had been avoiding him. And now it’s not going to stop.

“Shit,” Seungwoo says again, under his breath. “ _Shit!_ ”

His phone goes flying across the room, and this time, it catches the edge of a bookshelf and cracks, the glass ornament that’d been sitting there shattering with it, deafening in the darkness.

His only lead is avoiding him and he has wasted a day already and his brother is going to kill him. He’d been worried about the wrong thing. He can make the money back if he needs to, he could take on more clients and still manage to get himself out of this. But once Subin’s angry, there’s no going back from that. He can’t tell him he’s lost. There has to be something he can do before his brother realises he has messed up and decides to skin him alive.

 _Think, Seungwoo_. _It’s only been a day, there’s still time._

What had changed? Surely it can’t be so simple that now the letter’s out, Seungsik is dropping contact? It’s too obvious. He might as well have confessed, after all that time playing it safe, and now the curtain’s falling too easily, the scene ending half-way through. There has to be something else.

Or maybe Seungsik knows Seungwoo can’t do anything to stop him even if his identity is known, not if he can keep avoiding him. 

_You’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this._

It wouldn’t be the first time the thought of his brother turning on him has seemed like a very real possibility. He sees the thought flicker past in Subin's expression so often, if he steps out of line, sometimes even if he doesn't. There’d been months on end when he’d felt eyes on the back of his head, when there were none. The sensation never really leaves him.

“What am I going to do?” Seungwoo asks in the darkness. Subconsciously, one hand rises to the scar on his bicep, the vampire-bite raised skin rough under his fingertip. Subin had been eleven. Seungwoo had said something he hadn’t liked when they were reading- something thoughtless that he can’t even remember- and Subin had grabbed the closest thing at hand. He’d told their parents it was an accident, but there had been so many of them by then that Seungwoo could _finally_ see them begin to wonder about their youngest son. He’d told them a hundred times before then. Subin had overheard a few. Seungwoo had more scars by the time they took him to see someone.

 _Too bad persuasiveness is a family trait_ , Seungwoo thinks, smiling drily, and then he gets up and walks into his bedroom, sliding another phone from a stash in the drawer in his desk as he sits. 

All of the files he has on his brother are paper copies, easily disposable and one-of-a-kind, and there are so many different combinations on the safe that holds them that it takes him a couple of minutes to retrieve them. 

It's an impressive collection. There’s the medical examination from his time at the Police Academy, a preliminary psych evaluation, notes on all of Subin’s cases from the moment he was given a police badge. Seungwoo has his brother’s life written out in neat black characters, pages and pages, years and years mapped in ink. He has notices of every promotion, every newspaper clipping for the exceptional solves (Chan’s smiling face beaming, one arm thrown around a smaller, glowering officer) and the report that’d been filed to HR after a careless detective had mislaid important evidence and Subin had screamed at him until he was in tears. He’d quit soon after, when Subin’s psych eval had come back normal (Seungwoo had laughed) and the new, crazy prodigy detective had solved the case himself and gotten a raise.

The screaming is the only misstep. Seungwoo wonders if anyone in the precinct even remembers it happened. There had been nothing in Subin’s performance evaluations since except half-hearted ‘ _could be friendlier around the office_ ’s, no more HR reports, no guns fired prematurely, nothing to say that Detective Jung was anything but an exemplary young officer who’s very, very good at his job. 

Seungwoo considers one of the more recent pictures of his brother and imagines it hanging under huge red letters spelling WANTED. The report would probably read something like _showed no signs of mental instability. No prior problems with violence or crime._ Most of his colleagues would say they never saw it coming, that it didn't seem like the Subin they knew. As if they ever knew him at all. Would Chan begin to wonder how they knew each other, if Seungwoo showed up in an alley somewhere and Subin put in handcuffs? Even then, he might never know. Seungwoo himself had done a good job burying and burning every trace of his old life when he’d started taking on clients.

It’s too late in the night to be thinking about things like this. If he keeps going, he might see shapes shifting in the darkness, hear whispers in the silence, and the pool of light his desk lamp offers isn’t bright enough to block out the monsters. He sighs, and sits back, taking a pen from a drawer in the desk. Subin looks serious in almost every photo, and Seungwoo selects one from the pile of papers at random and doodles over the stone-faced boy staring back at him, a monocle and top-hat, a ridiculous moustache, childish and petty. The laugh that bubbles up his throat sounds like a sob.

He stifles it and the one that follows, shoving the knuckle of an index finger between his teeth and biting down, feeling the pain bring a trickle of clarity. The clocks counting down, not stopping for his worry, and time spent thinking about what horrible fate might await him if he fails to deliver what he promised is time he could be spending working out another angle. He has a lot of connections, people that could help him with this, help him get out of anything, and he’s not above using them, but this time there feels like there’s too much at stake to risk bringing in a third party. Subin’s secrets should remain between the two of them. There is no one Seungwoo trusts enough to tell.

So it’s just him, and whatever he can come up with as the night slips too quickly into morning, and the headache he’d been pushing back finally hits. Sleep is what he needs, but it won’t come, not like this, and he resigns himself to the pain as he sifts all the files back into their safe and closes his eyes. 

He should start over with what he knows already. The man now behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit had approached him a few hours before giving his ‘confession’ to the police, and even Seungwoo had been surprised at what was being asked of him. Now, it makes even less sense. The suspect can’t be the one behind the letter. Seungwoo had realised just as quickly as Subin had that the man was a decoy, a sacrificial lamb, and had been waiting for the punchline of a bad joke since his arrest. The crime had his brother’s fingerprints all over it.

 _Why would he be looking for the body? How had he found it without Seungwoo’s help?_ Sure, there are others in the city that do what he does, but Seungwoo likes to think none of them have the skills to pull a request like that off so quickly.

_Huh._

_Maybe that’s it._

The suspect had given a vague area and a name, the victim’s name. So maybe he _had_ known where the body was- maybe someone had already told him, the someone who’d sent the letter, who told him to take the fall. He’d been in and out of prison before, petty crimes, and it wasn’t hard to see he was a user. He’d reeked when he’d found Seungwoo’s office.

The person behind the letter had found the body, but they’d needed a decoy. They found users, petty criminals, people with nothing to lose, approached them with a deal, money in exchange for a few years in prison and a promise of early release. When they had that, the real killer would feel safe, and then the letter arrives. But this decoy had been different, too far gone to remember what had been asked of him. He’d forgotten the location and had tried to find it again through Seungwoo, then some other way- maybe the person responsible for the letter found him again and reminded him, or maybe he’d finally remembered himself, it didn’t matter- and then he’d confessed. But there had been a mistake, this once, and Seungwoo had been tipped off to something. Would he have thought anything of it, if it hadn’t been Subin’s crime?

It’s a clever set up, and Subin had been right- it seems rehearsed. It’s happened before. There might be mess-ups like this one if Seungwoo looked hard enough for them. But he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it without risking Subin being revealed. And any evidence he finds anyway has no chance of being viewed by a judge. Information brokers aren't detectives. The things he finds, he sells, or keeps to himself and uses when they're convenient. It wouldn't even be _evidence,_ if he found a slip up.

 _New angle._ He needs a new angle.

But the sun rises as he sits at his desk, eyes still closed, brain whirring and tired and trying to keep out the fears that keep pressing at him, and he’s no closer to a plan.


	16. Seeing Red

Day three. Two full days have passed since Subin first found the letter, and the third has been almost entirely wasted doing background checks on the victim, and checks again, and again, and _again_. They have no leads, because Subin is a better killer than the moron they’d locked up as the murderer. Maybe if he was a little _less_ good, the day wouldn’t have been so agonising. The cruel irony is not lost on him- he’d chosen a guy so dull and insignificant that no one would bother to look for him and now here he is, having to look for him, and finding him just as dull and insignificant now as he had when he'd first picked him. It’s like being haunted by the most boring ghost ever. The guy’s more interesting on a morgue slab.

Subin had been reluctant about the idea of planting something and blaming this all on someone else, but if he has to re-read the same files about how this damn victim didn’t do _anything_ with their life besides some very mediocre accounting for an almost bankrupt firm, estrange himself from his ex-wife and kids and live at the bottom of a cheap liquor bottle, he might be pushed to pin this on just about anyone _._

He really is a _bore._ Poor grades, barely got a job in accounting after years of convenience store gigs. His wife had filed for divorce only one year after their marriage, taken the kids on a one-way trip to the other side of the world, and hasn’t been in contact since. Even the victim’s brief stunt as an alcoholic had been so poor it had passed under everyone’s notice. That is, until they’d found him boarded up under a wall of concrete. The obituary had- very tastelessly, in Chan’s opinion- mentioned the _hard times_ and _temptation_ he’d succumbed to in ‘later life.’ He was thirty and already ruined. The colleagues, neighbours, and patrons of his usual bar had remembered absolutely nothing about him. Most hadn’t recognised his photograph. 

_Loner,_ Subin had saw Chan noting down. _Introverted, a homebody_. Somehow, he'd found unoffensive ways of recounting every tiny detail that Subin had been raging at, passed no judgement as Subin continuously fought the urge to put his head through a wall. Maybe next time he should pick someone slightly more interesting to kill, just so that if this ever happens again he won't have to suffer through recounts of a life so infuriatingly dull over and over and over again.

 _No,_ he reminds himself. There shouldn't be any thoughts of 'next time' until everything is cleared up, and especially not in the mood he's in. It'd be all too easy to abandon his caution.

Chan had seemed almost thankful to find that the victim had been an orphan. No family to break the news to- well, no family that cared. Subin had already known. He likes picking orphans, feels an odd kind of connection to them. He’s still uncertain whether it’s his way of killing off little bits of his brother or little bits of himself. Either way, it had at least made him smile to re-read that part of the file. The smugness had been fleeting.

Seungwoo has been quiet, too. That either means he’s finally found something and is drowning under a mountain of files and phone calls, _or_ it means he hasn’t found a damn thing and is moping around his apartment, staring up at his ceiling. If it hadn’t been so much of a hell of a day, Subin might have waited for dark and went to check which one exactly it is, but he’s tired when the clock ticks down to the end of his shift, and even Chan goes home at the right time. No night-shifts, no ‘ _I’ll just finish this up and then I’ll be done_ ’s. Subin wonders for a moment whether the victim had been so lousy even Chan doesn’t care about solving the case, but then he sees the older Detective sighing down at his notepad, looking years older than he had that morning. It seems Chan gets tired too, sometimes.

Sejun is in the kitchen when Subin gets home. 

“Bin? Is that you?”

Sighing, Subin follows the sound of his flatmate's voice through the living room and into the adjoining room, letting the kitchen door swing shut behind him. He eyes the chopping boards covered with platters of batter, the streaks of flour on the worktops. There’s a sweet, dark smell in the air- chocolate. Slabs of it sit waiting by one of the boards.

“I told you I don’t like that name,” he says.

Sejun chuckles, grabbing a bar of chocolate from the pile. “I think it’s cute.” There’s an irritable huff, and Sejun scrunches his nose up at the way Subin drops into a bar stool, on the other side of the island. There’s a bowl of cherries between them, that the younger boy just notices.

“What are you making with these?”

“Gateaux.” 

Subin makes a noise of acknowledgement and plucks one from the bowl. It’s sour, and frozen, and he sighs at the taste, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Tough day?”

He opens his eyes again to see Sejun watching him, the same look he always wears when he’s brave enough to breach the subject of work, a small, stubborn smile unable to keep him from gnawing anxiously at his lip. For some reason, he always seems to think talking about the cases would upset Subin.

“What’s for dinner?” the younger boy asks, avoiding the question. The sympathy on Sejun’s face shifts closer to relief.

Then he glances down at the slab of chocolate, the knife in his hand, the bowl of cherries. “Um. I hadn't thought about it.”

Subin rolls his eyes, smiling a little. “We can get takeout.”

He supposes the way they feel about their jobs is something they have in common, even if Sejun’s joy feels so much purer than his own. They both enjoy their work. Subin hadn’t been expecting their kitchen to be perpetually filled with the scent of sweets, new recipes tried out in their oven every night, the fridge always over-spilling with ingredients, but it seems the café job hadn’t just been a job for Sejun. Subin can’t complain, when he comes home so often to a warm meal on the table and dessert waiting on the counter, when he gets to tease Sejun for all of the aprons they own and every time he walks in to see him covered in flour and sugar.

Takeaway menus fall onto the counter in front of him, and he gives Sejun a tired thank you, very much looking forward to curling up on their sofa and forgetting about the day he’d wasted. Carbs, dessert, terrible television that Sejun can laugh at. That’s what Subin needs.

He’s just ended the call when Sejun gasps. The knife he’d been holding clatters onto the worktop, and he’s already turning away, one hand clutched in the other, trying to turn his back to Subin.

“Sejun?”

The sound of the other boy's gasp echoes in his ears. Only when Sejun is trying to pull his arm out of his grip does Subin realise he has moved, just as surprised at how quickly he'd jumped from his chair as Sejun is.

“It’s fine,” Sejun laughs, still trying to turn away, “it’s just-”

Subin grabs his wrist with enough force to keep him in place. “Let me see.”

Sejun’s breathy laugh sounds again as he tries to tug his hand away. “Really, Bin, it’s nothing-”

“ _Sejun._ ”

The sound of his name, a warning in Subin’s smokey voice, makes him pause, and more gently, Subin turns Sejun’s hand around, uncovering it, and this time Sejun lets him. Three of his fingers are stained red, and Subin’s heart thuds in his ears- _dark_ red. Almost purple. Thin, trailing down his fingertips, spreading too slowly.

Cherry juice.

Sejun tries to bite back a laugh as he raises his other first and unfurls his fingers, showing the crushed cherry in his palm. There’s a beat of silence, and then Subin scoffs, and Sejun throws his head back and laughs, full bellied, pushing Subin’s shoulder with his own, lost in his joy. His eyes crinkle, cheeks go pink with breathlessness, and Subin glares at him.

“You should have seen your face!” Sejun laughs.

“Stop.”

But Sejun just laughs again, airy, holding his stomach. “Did I really scare you that much?”

Irritably, Subin shoves him, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough that he stumbles, and stops laughing, toppling into a bar stool. 

“Idiot,” Subin sighs.

Sejun grins up at him. “You looked like you needed a distraction.”

He’s holding his hands out in front of him, trying not to stain anything with the cherry juice still running down his fingers, and Subin stares down at him, frowning.

“You’re going to make a mess.”

Sejun giggles, and hits Subin’s stomach with a forearm. “Worth it.”

Subin realises how close they are. He’d been crowding Sejun, trying to see the cut, and hadn’t thought about it when he’d pushed him, but now he can feel Sejun’s knees brushing his legs, notices that the older boy has to lift his chin to meet his eye. That smug grin is still on his face.

Subin sighs, and grabs the dishcloth lying on the countertop beside him. Sejun just keeps smiling up at him, though, and he feels something flare up inside him. He takes Sejun’s wrist gently, lifting it into the air, and sees Sejun give him a strange look when the dish towel remains at his side. Subin doesn’t use it.

Sejun’s gasp sounds different as Subin takes a fingertip into his mouth, swirling his tongue, cleaning the juice from the older boy's skin. He does it again, with the next finger, the taste sour and sweet, and Sejun keeps staring up at him, eyes a little too wide. Subin would give him a smug smile of his own if his mouth wasn’t already busy.

“Bin-”

The doorbell rings. Sejun jolts, and Subin releases his hand, sighing. Both of them had forgotten about the food.

Subin doesn’t look at Sejun as he leaves the kitchen, striding casually away, but even when he’s walking through the living room by himself, he can’t keep the grin off of his lips. That changes when he gets to the door.

There’s no one there waiting for him. Just another letter on the doormat.

Subin shuts himself quickly away in his room, but he needn’t bother. There’s nothing inside except a little hourglass, black sand shifting from side to side as Subin holds it up, and the message is clear. He’s running out of time, and whoever keeps sending these threats has had no sudden change of heart, no sudden rise in compassion. If he doesn’t give over the money before the end of the week, everything he’s tried so hard to build and keep in balance will come crashing down around him, and the worst part of it- he'll never even know who did it to him.

Subin laughs roughly and places the hourglass on his desk. It’s little more than a toy, though a fine one, real glass instead of cheap plastic. There doesn’t look like there are any prints on it, which is hardly surprising considering the discretion of the whole thing so far. Subin feels a little respect for whoever the bastard is, if he’s honest with himself. The whole thing must be very funny from their perspective. 

There are a few heavy books on a shelf above Subin’s desk. He selects one at random, enjoying the weight of it in his hands, letting out a calming breath. Then he brings it down hard onto the hourglass, shattering the glass, sending black sand spilling over his desk and onto the floorboards. From somewhere in the apartment, he hears the distant sound of Sejun cursing, surprised by the noise.

A concerned cry follows half a second later- “Bin? Are you alright?”

Subin returns the book to its place on the shelf. “Fine. Just a book falling.” 

For a moment, he stares down at the remains of the toy on his desk, eyes the way the sharp corners of glass catch the light. And then he steps back through his bedroom door, and closes it softly behind him.


End file.
